VATICAN CITY — “You get used to it.” That was Pope Leo XIV ‘s matter-of-fact response when King Charles III asked about the swarms of televisions cameras documenting his historic visit to the Vatican last month.
Charles is no stranger to paparazzi, so Leo wasn’t telling the monarch anything he didn’t already know. But Leo’s blasé comment seemed to confirm what Vatican observers have noticed recently: that Leo has indeed gotten used to being pope, and is finding his footing six months into the job.
After his shock election in May and sharp learning curve over the summer, Leo’s key priorities are coming into focus, especially where he dovetails with his predecessor, Pope Francis, and where he diverges.
As his pontificate’s six-month mark arrives on Nov. 8, here’s a rundown of what we’ve learned about the first American pope, his style, substance and where he might take the Catholic Church.
Continuity with Francis on key social justice issues
Leo showed himself in perfect lockstep with Francis when he published his first major teaching document last month, on the church’s non-negotiable “preferential option for the poor.” Francis began writing the text before he died; Leo took it over and made it his own.
In it, Leo criticized how the wealthy live in a “bubble of comfort and luxury” while poor people suffer on the margins. He urged a renewed commitment to fixing the structural causes of poverty.
Leo has also embraced Francis’ ecological legacy, presiding over the first Mass using a new prayer formula “for the care of creation.” He has given the go-ahead to Francis’ ambitious plan to turn a Vatican-owned property north of Rome into a massive solar farm that could make Vatican City the world’s first carbon-neutral state.
Perhaps nowhere was Leo more Francis-like than on Oct. 23, when he met at the Vatican with Indigenous groups and representatives of popular movements who had been championed by the Argentine Jesuit.
Francis had prioritized people on the margins, and exhorted the church to accompany them as they demanded the basic human necessities of “tierra, techo, trabajo,” – land, housing and work.
Leo repeated Francis’ mantra during his audience and put his own spin on it, noting that his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, took up the issue of workers rights at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.
“Echoing Francis’ words, I say today: land, housing and work are sacred rights. It is worthwhile to fight for them, and I would like you to hear me say, ‘I am here, I am with you!’” Leo said.
Cardinal Michael Czerny, a top adviser to both popes, said Leo is in perfect continuity with Francis, implementing processes that Francis set in motion.
“The transition from one Holy Father to another is not primarily a transition in policies,” Czerny said in an interview. While a change in governments from one party to the next can signal a break, “here it would be a mistake to look for that.”
