Mathematician and canonist: the identikit of Pope Prevost reveals a pontificate based on rigor and the end of personalism. All new key appointments.
“Disappear so that Christ remains”, this is the program he proposes Leo XIV a year ago he impressed in his first homily as pontiff, the one he pronounced in the Sistine Chapel in front of the cardinals who had elected him. And yesterday in Pompeii, exactly one year later, he gave his corollary: «No earthly power will save the world, but only the divine power of love, this divine power of love that Jesus, the Lord, has revealed and given to us. We believe in Him, we hope in Him, we follow Him!
It is difficult to convey the strength of this “Christocentric” program in a world accustomed to easy slogans, refrains and to almost reflexively excluding the hypothesis of God. A year after the cardinal’s election to the throne of Peter Robert Francis Provostthe first American Pope in history, spiritual son of Saint Augustine, that program remains the only valid interpretation to understand the nature of the pontificate of Leo XIV.
The gentle roar and the response to criticism from overseas
The brazen and ridiculous tirades that come from overseas from the president Donald Trump they are like movie theaters, like background noise, no matter how important the pulpit from which they come is. At the tycoon’s latest outing, which even accused the Pope of being in some way in favor of nuclear weapons for Iran, Pope Provost he responded that “if anyone wants to criticize me because I proclaim the Gospel, let him do so with the truth”, adding that “the mission of the Church is to preach the Gospel, to preach peace”. A gentle roar from Pope Leo, but certainly free and not easily pigeonholed.
Mathematician, with a doctorate in canon law from the Angelicum, pope Provost he has a mindset that cannot fail to take into account the logical-deductive steps and the structural rigor of the law. Attentive to form, without making it an idol, he is certainly not committed to obliterating those who preceded him, as some would wish, nor can he define himself as a “Bergoglian”, as many are quick to label him. In this first year Leo XIV he leads the Church with what can be defined as the “Prevost method”, that of those who are trying to harmonize the government of the Church, overcoming personalisms to return to a more choral and less polarized dimension.
The return to law and the new geography of appointments
While Francis tended to override traditional offices and hierarchies, the current pontiff is bringing the world back to the center canon law and institutional professionalism. His appointments are the mirror of this vision: he has chosen canonists with proven experience such as the archbishop Roberto Maria Redaelli to the Secretariat of the Dicastery for the clergy e Filippo Iannone as prefect of the Dicastery for bishops.
Even the choice of the Australian Anthony Randazzo to the Dicastery for legislative texts confirms this line: a man who has known the Curia since Ratzinger’s time, but who brings with him the pastoral experience of a bishop “from the other world”. The appointment of the archbishop Paolo Rudelli he Substitute for General Affairs – the “third most powerful position” in the Vatican – is another sign of this new phase, also a canonist and long-time diplomat, taking the place of the Venezuelan Edgar Peña Parra.
Synodality and liturgical peace: the listening strategy
The management of Synod on the synod it’s an open game. There is the forward movement of the German church, ready to formalize the fast blessing for irregular couples according to the famous document Fiducia supplicans, but already stopped by the Pope himself. And then the work of implementing the long synodal path which will culminate in an ecclesial assembly in the Vatican in October 2028 is at stake.
Without formally repealing the restrictions introduced by his predecessor, Leo XIV inaugurated what could be defined as a “liturgical peace”. In a message to the French bishops gathered in Lourdes, he urged them to find “concrete solutions” for the generous inclusion of those who adhere to the Vetus Ordociting the guidelines of Vatican II, but significantly omitting any reference to the motu proprio of its predecessor Traditiones custodias. It is the “Prevost method”, the one that also knows the times of the Church. Who are not the ones with whom the things of the world are measured.
