Pope Leo XIV’s plan for the Church has been clear from the beginning: to seek to restore harmony within the Church.
His episcopal motto, In Illo Uno Unum — In the One, we are one — says so. His actions, which have thus far sought to ease tensions rather than provoke division, also speak volumes.
After 16 months, however, we are still waiting on the Pope for decisions that need to be made. We are awaiting Leo’s first consistory.
We await a round of appointments that will affect at least five top positions in the Roman Curia. We await Leo’s “corrections” to some of Pope Francis’ reforms.
But Leo XIV doesn’t seem to care about expectations.
We already know that people on every side of the various divides running through the Church will be disappointed.
The traditionalist world expected a sudden and clear reversal of the ostracism experienced during the Francis pontificate, and they have grown impatient for an action that will likely never come.
The progressive world, in what is almost a photo-negative of the traditionalist world, has performed mental gymnastics to interpret everything Leo has done in continuity with his immediate predecessor, and their efforts will only be able to stave off their own disappointment for so long.
Leo’s vision for the Church became even clearer on Sept. 10 when he met with the group of newly appointed bishops, who had arrived for the annual “baby bishops” course held each year in Rome.
The Pope asked them to be paternal, as he had done with the bishops of the Latin Episcopal Conference of the Arab Regions during a Sept. 3 private audience.
Reminding them of their “episcopal fatherhood,” this paternal role is nourished by discipleship, fully in keeping with the Augustinian charism and his own personal missionary charism.
Leo has said he desires a Church with a hierarchy, but one that maintains strong communion and great collegiality. Communion entails a “disarmed and disarming peace” — according to the famous phrase the Pope uttered the first time he appeared as Pope — while collegiality means everyone’s participation in governance, or at least in discussions.
For this reason, too, Leo XIV did not interrupt the synodal process but called for progress on the question of synodality.
The working groups that emerged after the 2023 Synod continued to meet, release documents and make proposals.
And it is precisely in this process, however, where one of the great risks of the Leonine pontificate lies: namely, in the desire not to cancel the existing processes, those already underway become merely bureaucratic.
Synodality: Road to Bureaucracy?
In short, Leo’s handling of the synodal processes may come with the risk of further bureaucratizing the Church.
Cases in point are the reports of Groups 6 and 7 of the 2023 synodal gathering.
For instance, Group 6 is studying the relationships between bishops, consecrated life and ecclesial congregations. Group 7, meanwhile, is discussing the nature and conduct of the ad limina visits, that is, the periodic visits that the bishops of each country must carry out in Rome.
The reports are proposals submitted to the Holy Father, who is free to disregard them. In short, they do not constitute decisions, and even if the Pope were to accept the conclusions of the reports, they still would have to be translated into operational guidelines involving the relevant departments.
The two documents address the Church’s possible forms of authority, but they do so by offering procedural solutions, and procedures always make everything more complicated — in other words, more bureaucratic.
Regarding the relationship between dioceses and religious institutions, the synodal report discusses a “relational conversion,” calling for overcoming “merely hierarchical” relationships.
Furthermore, the report calls for greater clarity on the theological and legal criteria for recognizing new religious institutes and new forms of consecrated life.
It even proposes mandatory agreements or contracts of understanding between dioceses and religious institutions, which clearly define the commitments undertaken, the financial aspects, the management of the works, and mutual responsibilities.
These proposals arise from concrete problems: excessive authoritarianism or centralization, and a lack of understanding of how dioceses and religious institutions manage their relationships.
But the problem isn’t the pattern itself. Rather, it lies with the people, and in how they exercise authority.
Leo XIV knows this, and that’s probably why he insists on the theme of paternity.
At the same time, he has allowed the synodal debate, its slow and cumbersome modus procedendi — in a word, its bureaucracy — to grind on and on.
He has not even clarified the practical issues, namely, that the Synod cannot be a deliberative body, and that it is not a small parliament.
Despite the lack of clarity from Rome, however, some bishops have taken it upon themselves to rein in the synodal process.
In Norway, Bishop Fredrik Hansen of Oslo convened the first diocesan synod in history, openly declaring that it was not a synod aimed at changing Church doctrine because it was not a parliament.
He even cited the synods of St. Charles Borromeo, the Cardinal Archbishop of Milan during the Counter-Reformation, as an example.
In the Netherlands, Auxiliary Bishop Rob Mutsaerts strongly criticized the Synod and called for pastoral experiences to be evaluated on concrete indicators, such as vocations, Mass attendance, and the spread of the practice of confession.
But Leo’s decision to let the debate go without a clear word on the situation risks not only creating confusion but also creating the conditions for further bureaucratization of the Curia.
It may seem like a vague topic, but it isn’t.
Pope Francis ushered in the era of commissions — for communications reform, for economic reform, for Curia reform — and while this created a push for efficiency, it also resulted in a bureaucracy that was anything but efficient.
A concrete example is the reform of the Vatican economy, in which the powers of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA) were stripped and reinstated within a few months.
The reform of the Vatican City State is another case in point, with three drafts of the Vatican Fundamental Law in just a few months.
What does Leo XIV intend to do?
On the one hand, the Holy See needs better organization.
On the other hand, the Holy See needs good people with common sense who care about it and can manage a complex structure professionally and logically.
Then there’s the need for managers.
For now, Leo XIV has chosen a manager, Montse Alvarado, to lead the Dicastery for Communication and to sit on the board of the Brother Sun Foundation.
But he hasn’t yet chosen his leadership team, including the bishops and cardinals who will assist him in governance.
He has thus far relied on a structure with which he has had no conflict, but which, under Francis, in fact produced numerous declarations of intent and an image of the Church that reflects a democratic, parliamentary-like structure of participation rather than a community of the faithful.
While Leo proceeds at his slow pace toward choosing his own team, judgment of his pontificate remains suspended due to a lack of evidence.
At some point, however, non-decisions become decisions.
The bureaucratization initiated by Pope Francis will grind on, and will stifle any momentum a change in papal leadership might have afforded.
Perhaps paradoxically, Pope Francis used bureaucratization to ensure he would be the sole decision-maker, while giving the impression of listening to everyone.
Leo XIV has an opportunity here, but the window is closing.