Pope Leo XIV defends order and security during the audience with the Vatican police. A position that marks a clear distance from Bergoglio
During the audience with the managers of the Vatican Public Security Inspectorate, Pope Leo XIV explicitly praised the work of the gendarmeriewhich handled the influx of over 33 million pilgrims during the Jubilee year, without incident. «Order and security are gifts that cost sacrifice to those who guarantee them and which however contribute significantly to the good of all». Words that might seem to be uttered by a politician from the Brothers of Italy or the League. But no, it’s the Pontiff himself.
A stance that sounds like an indirect response to his Secretary of State, Pietro Parolinwho a few days earlier had commented on the Security decree of the Italian government with the formula: “More education and less repression”. Leo XIV, on the other hand, does not use periphrases: order and security are good for everyone. Pleased think how much this statement annoyed the progressive intelligentsia in the Vaticanor that (large) part of the left accustomed to considering every border control measure as repression.
Pope Leo XIV topples Bergoglian hypocrisy
There was a “veil of Maya” that hid the true essence of things. No, we are not talking about Schopenhauer, but about the veil of hypocrisy that hovered over the Bergoglian magisterium. With Leo XIV, finally, this veil was torn. Francis preached the open-door policy, but in the meantime the Vatican State, instead of welcoming the much-loved migrants, maintained rather stringent immigration legislation. In December 2024, a decree was promulgated establishing one to four years in prison and fines of up to 25 thousand euros for those who enter the Vatican “with violence, threats or deception”. Paragraph 2 specifies that entry by deception is considered to be that which occurs “with fraudulent evasion of security systems or evading border controls”.
And this is exactly what illegal immigrants who arrive in Italy on boats or accompanied by NGOs do. Yet, while the Vatican severely punished these behaviors within its borders, it preached to Italy to open its ports wide. Everyone is good at welcoming, until they have to welcome them. There they become the meanest of all, while they caress with words they erect an insurmountable wall in deeds. A jarring contradiction that Leo XIV finally seems willing to overcome, openly recognizing that security and order are not right-wing or left-wing values, but necessary conditions for living well.
The new Vatican course
The words of the Pontiff represent a significant change of direction compared to the “orphan” curia of Bergogliism, which continued to see every measure of control as a betrayal of evangelical values.
Pope Leo XIV gave another signal during the reception with a Finnish delegationpraising the ecumenical model of the Nordic country and the joint statement of Orthodox, Lutheran and Catholic bishops on palliative care. Yet another issue on which he marked a distance from his predecessor.
The new pontificate seems oriented towards a realism that recognizes the need to combine hospitality and legality, charity and responsibility. Order and security are not enemies of social justice, but the conditions for it to exist. And who knows if anyone will still dare to talk about continuity with Bergoglio.
