Pope Leo is spurning populism for a more institutional style of leadership

John L Allen Jr/ Crux • July 5, 2025

Like the populist he was, Pope Francis felt an instinctive scepticism about bureaucracies, including the one he was called to lead. Famously, he once catalogued 15 spiritual diseases of the Roman curia, including “spiritual Alzheimer’s” and the “terrorism of gossip”, and those actually were among the kinder things he had to say about the place.

I vividly recall one veteran curial official coming out of that Christmas 2014 dressing-down and sarcastically quipping to no one in particular: “Well, that wasn’t exactly a pick-me-up.” The problem with populism is that, sooner or later, you need institutions to function to get things done. Personal inspiration and leadership by example can only carry an administration so far, and when its institutions, which a leader is called to direct, are demoralised and lacking direction, it generally spells great mischief.

It’s a point that Pope Leo XIV appears to appreciate, judging from his own early interactions with the institutions over which he now presides. On 5 June, the pontiff held an audience with officials of the Secretariat of State, the largest and most powerful department of the Roman Curia, and the one which plays a coordinating role with regard to the others. During the Francis era, the Secretariat of State saw its wings clipped in various ways, including having its responsibility for financial administration taken away and also its leadership in framing Vatican foreign policy occasionally handed off to ad hoc trouble shooters such as Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, with regard to the war in Ukraine.

In his audience with its officials, Pope Leo went out of his way to be positive about the traditional role and capacities of the Secretariat of State. “I can say with great sincerity that in these few weeks – a month has not even passed yet since beginning my Petrine ministry – it is evident to me that the Pope cannot work alone,” he said. “There is great necessity to rely on the assistance of many people in the Holy See, and in a special way on all of you in the Secretariat of State. I offer my heartfelt thanks!”

Some wags joked that the claim a pope cannot work alone didn’t seem quite so evident to Leo’s predecessor, but they were nevertheless cheered to hear him say it. Commentators noted that he was in effect rejecting the idea of a pope as an isolated monarch, instead positioning him as something more akin to the leader of a group engaged in service to the Church.

“Today, the Secretariat of State itself reflects the face of the Church,” Pope Leo said. “It is a large community working alongside the Pope: together we share the questions, difficulties, challenges and hopes of the People of God throughout the world.”

Gratitude was, in a sense, the Pope’s top note.

“Thank you for the skills you place at the service of the Church, for your work – which almost always goes unnoticed – and for the evangelical spirit that inspires it,” he continued. That was it – no great correction, no reprimands, just solid appreciation for the work being performed. In part, that approach may reflect the biographical difference that while Francis had never served in the Roman Curia prior to his election to the papacy, Leo had run a dicastery. He thus had the opportunity to witness the work of the Secretariat of State up close – imperfect, admittedly, but still essential.

To put it differently, Pope Leo understands that if there were no Secretariat of State to direct the operations of the Vatican, a pope likely would have to invent it.

Four days later, on 9 June, the Pope once again had the opportunity to address his closest collaborators in ecclesiastical administration when he celebrated the Jubilee of the Holy See. In this context too, his remarks were strikingly free of reproach or warnings, instead concentrating on the positive.

“The Apostolic See guards the sanctity of its roots while being guarded by them,” he said, in essence affirming the historic mission of the Holy See as the guardian of Catholic identity and belief. Pope Leo insisted that “all the fecundity of the Holy See depends on the Cross of Christ”, noting that “otherwise it is only appearance, if not worse”, and proclaiming that “the Holy See is holy as the Church is, in its original nucleus, in the fibre of which it is woven”.

As basic as it may seem, the insistence that the Holy See is in itself holy – that holiness is part of its DNA – is not necessarily something that could have been taken for granted under Pope Francis.

Pope Leo also called on all officials of the Holy See to contribute to its holiness by pursuing their own personal sanctity: “The best way to serve the Holy See is to try to be saints, each of us according to his state in life and the task entrusted to him,” he said.

In a nutshell, this contrast captures something essential about the transition from Francis to Leo, a point with potential consequences right across the board. While Francis was a populist, Leo is a man of community and of structures, whose wish is to govern through the institutions around him, rather than around or in spite of them.

That basic difference cannot be underestimated, especially as it suggests a more stable, and a less contentious and less maverick, style of leadership that will set the tone for the months and years ahead.

This article appears in the July/August 2025 edition of the Catholic Herald. To subscribe to our thought-provoking magazine and have independent, high-calibre and counter-cultural Catholic journalism delivered to your door anywhere in the world click HERE.