Pope Leo’s ‘hot autumn’

Rome. On Monday evening, the Pope left Castel Gandolfo after three weeks of rest at the Apostolic Palace. It was not one of those ‘detox’ holidays that are so fashionable at the moment – the sort spent in some remote hermitage cut off from the world, where the focus is on eating healthily, walking on the grass, soaking up the sun and devoting the right amount of time to spirituality (apparently the latest trend is yoga in the morning and the Psalms in the evening). Leo XIV attended a concert held in his honour, a lunch with a group of vulnerable people, treated himself to a few trips out of town (always of a religious and spiritual nature) and then the usual Sunday Angelus prayers. He returned to the place he is so fond of just two days later for a peace event (with Andrea Bocelli singing) and will return there again on 15 August for the Solemnity of the Assumption and at the end of the month for a moving Mass by the lake, just as John Paul II did decades ago. A welcome break, in short, before plunging headlong back into the issues that are – and will continue to be – at the forefront in the coming months. Apart from the two August outings (to Assisi, San Marino and Rimini), there are trips to prepare for. The first on the calendar is the trip to France at the end of September. It was meant to be a journey of reconciliation following the tensions between the Élysée Palace and Pope Francis’s pontificate, with the Pope having agreed to an official visit to Paris, Lourdes and Metz – the city of one of the great founding fathers of a united Europe, Robert Schuman. Emmanuel Macron, however, has chosen to welcome the Pontiff by giving final approval to the end-of-life bill, which has been opposed by the bishops, the Catholic laity – to an extent not seen for years – and a significant section of the political spectrum (Prime Minister Lecornu, who as a young man wanted to become a Benedictine monk). It will be interesting to hear what Leo has to say at the various stops on the pilgrimage, particularly in Lourdes, where he will address thousands of sick people who are deeply concerned about the issue. And then, in late autumn, the trip to Latin America, taking in Uruguay, Argentina and Peru. As he revealed in an interview with NBC, he may visit the United States in a couple of years’ time. Everyone has interpreted this as meaning after Trump’s term of office has ended. Autumn, however, will also bring with it the meeting marking the tenth anniversary of Amoris laetitia, Pope Francis’s exhortation following the two synods on the family, which sparked so much debate – from public showdowns between cardinals to a nail-biting vote and various, not entirely unambiguous, interpretations of the decisions adopted. Given the programme and the tone Leone has chosen to set for the event, it is unlikely that we will witness a repeat of the upheaval of ten years ago. In the letter in which he invited the Eastern patriarchs and bishops, the Pope focused, in fact, on those aspects of the exhortation where consensus has been virtually unanimous: namely, considering the family as it is today and the challenges it faces now and in the coming years. There are no barricades on the horizon ready to be erected, nor any demands capable of destabilising the assembly. A great deal of water has flowed down the Tiber since then. Where the ground is really shaking, however, is in the liturgical sphere – perhaps the most sensitive of the various issues on the Pope’s agenda. 

Cardinal Arthur Roche, Prefect for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, did not give Leone a very welcome gift upon his return from holiday. The English cardinal has in fact given an interview to "The Tablet" in which he states that the Pope will not amend "Traditionis custodes" nor return to Benedict XVI’s "Summorum pontificum", which authorised the celebration of Mass according to the "vetus ordo". Controversy is, of course, rife on Tridentine-inspired social media, where users are ready to rail against Roche and even against the Pope. The Pope, however, has not commented. The only words he has uttered on the subject date back a year: to explore, study, discuss and understand. Since then, there has been no shift whatsoever, and given his absolute prudence and silence on such complex matters – one need only recall that in the face of the Lefebvrian schismatic threats, which subsequently materialised, he intervened only once verbally and only once in writing – moreover, forty-eight hours before the rift that took place in Écône – it is unlikely that he appreciated the cardinal’s public statement in the press. Not least because the effect achieved was to create instability, the opposite of the unity so fervently called for by his superior, Leo. Autumn looks set to be a busy time. It would be advisable to proceed one day at a time, taking in the soothing views of Lake Albano as much as possible.