A few days after his election as pope in May, Leo XIV stepped into a chauffeur-driven black Volkswagen minivan with tinted windows and made a surprise visit to the international headquarters of the Augustinian order in Rome.
Not only was he the first American pope, the tiny religious order that Leo, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost, ran for 12 years had also just produced its first pontiff in the history of the Roman Catholic church. Still somewhat bewildered by his election, he had a yearning to see his fellow Augustinian brothers.
Over lunch, Leo spoke about the sudden change to his life and how he would need to renounce his pleasure of driving or freely going for a walk.
“He appeared very tense on TV so it was nice to see him more relaxed,” said Pasquale Cormio, the rector of the Basilica of St Augustine in central Rome’s Campo Marzio, who met Leo during their priesthood training. “He was aware of the weight of the role, but said: ‘Look, I assure you, I will never give up being your brother’.”
The new pope’s first months – he marks three months as pontiff this week – have been relatively low-key despite hosting plenty of audiences, and the Augustinian emphasis on unity, listening widely, community and collaboration appear to have guided him. Leo’s style starkly contrasts with his often divisive and hasty Jesuit predecessor, the late Pope Francis, even though they shared similar progressive political views.
Francis, elected in 2013, snubbed the Vatican’s traditional trappings by choosing to live in a room in a humble guesthouse rather than the Apostolic Palace, ditching its fancy cars for a modest Fiat and opting out of spending his summers in the papal palace in Castel Gandolfo, a hilltop town close to Rome.
Francis also moved swiftly on making key appointments, travelled to Brazil on his first overseas trip after just a few months in office, and made several bold statements, including saying “who am I to judge?” when discussing homosexuality.
Leo, on the other hand, has restored some Vatican customs – using less modest means of travel, living in the Apostolic Palace and resuming papal holidays in Castel Gandolfo.
“One of the ways the world got to know Francis was through his gestures,” said Christopher White, the author of the recently published book Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy. He described him as an extrovert who “liked being around people”.
Leo, 69, is an introvert. “He’s very much a quiet manager, someone who likes to do his homework,” added White. “He hasn’t yet made any top appointments but he has held lots of audiences – as a way to listen. He’s figuring out how he’s going to run the show and is keeping his cards close to his chest.”
One area where he has been quick to exert himself is geopolitics, White said. The pontiff has twice met the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has spoken by phone to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and has repeatedly affirmed the Vatican’s willingness to host Ukrainian-Russian peace talks.
He has also become more robust in his condemnation of Israel’s war in Gaza, even more so after three people were killed by Israeli shelling of the strip’s only Catholic church. The pontiff received a phone call from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, after the strike, during which he pushed for an end to the conflict. Two days later, in his strongest words against the conflict yet, he condemned the “barbarity” and Israel’s “indiscriminate use of force” after 93 people were killed while waiting for food.
“Leo is moving cautiously but he is more clear in his denunciation of the Israeli government,” said Marco Politi, a Vatican journalist and author of the book The Unfinished Revolution: The Church After Francis. “This represents a problem for Israel because, unlike Francis, who might have been considered a bit reckless and gaffe-prone, it proves that nothing has changed in the Vatican’s continued support of Palestinian rights.”
Unlike the Jesuits, whose structure is more hierarchical, Politi said Leo clearly signalled how he would lead the church during his inauguration mass homily when he said the pope “is not a lone leader or a leader placed above others”. This approach was evident when he handed the microphone to Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, and Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Catholic Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, to initially speak out after the attack on the Gaza church. “He doesn’t want to be like Francis who worked alone and who made decisions alone,” added Politi.
Geopolitics aside, Leo’s main initial task has been to foster unity in a church divided by some of Francis’s policies. That said, his papacy is expected to more or less continue along the progressive path laid by his predecessor.
“We mustn’t forget that during conclave, the ultra-conservatives wanted to put Francis’s politics on trial,” said Politi. “But they failed, and that’s why Leo was chosen – to send a signal that the church is moving forward, not backward.”
