The first pope who bore this name, Leo the Great, a superb theologian and homilist, confronted Attila and managed to dissuade him from descending on Rome, during the era of the barbarian invasions of the empire.
But the new pope too, who has taken the name of Leo XIV, a theologian and canonist raised in the school of the great Augustine, will have to face the modern Attilas, in the current upheaval of international balances, whether they be called Xi Jinping, or Vladimir Putin.
His first words, from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica, were the same as those of the risen Christ. “Peace be with you all.” And ten times he came back to repeat: “peace.” Which however for the Augustine of De civitate Dei was never synonymous with surrender, but also a reason for a just war, “when a state must be forced to return what it has taken away unjustly.”
Robert Francis Prevost, in his life as Augustinian religious, scholar, missionary, bishop, and cardinal prefect, never grappled with geopolitics, which instead is daily bread for Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who flanked him on the loggia of St. Peter’s.
Everything foreshadows that Leo XIV will confirm Parolin in the office of secretary of state and will act from now on in full agreement with him and with Vatican diplomacy. And this is already enough to overturn the ways in which Pope Francis acted in the international arena, deciding on his lonesome what to say and what to do, setting aside and humiliating the secretariat of state and instead using the “parallel diplomacy” brought to bear by the Community of Sant’Egidio, of which Cardinal Matteo Zuppi too has been part from the beginning.
Ukraine could be a decisive testing ground for this reordering, as shown by the joyful message addressed to the new pope by the major archbishop of the Greek Catholic Church of that nation, Sviatoslav Shevchuk: “By taking the name of Leo, His Holiness testifies to the entire world that the breath of peace of the risen Savior must be transformed, in the current context, into a renewed doctrine of the Catholic Church on just and lasting peace.”
Of course, Leo XIV will no longer be heard justifying Putin’s aggression against Ukraine as having been provoked by NATO, which “went to bark at Russia’s gates without understanding that the Russians are imperial and do not allow any foreign power to come close to their borders,” as Pope Francis said more than once.
Nor will it happen again that the Ukrainian people will hear from Leo XIV the request to have “the courage of surrender, of the white flag,” as proposed by his predecessor, nor much less the urging to make Kyiv an “open city” for the entry of Russian troops, without resistance, as invoked in the first days of the invasion by the founder and all-powerful head of the Community of Sant’Egidio, Andrea Riccardi.
In short, it is foreseeable that with Pope Leo XIV the secretariat of state will soon resume its autonomy of action on the terrain of international politics, in full agreement with the pope and free from any abusive “parallel diplomacy.” And if it remains true that Parolin belongs to that diplomatic current called “Ostpolitik” which had in Cardinal Agostino Casaroli its teacher, widely known not to have been shared by either John Paul II or Benedict XVI, it is no less true that today the international balance is so upset as to require an inventive capacity without precedent, also on the part of Vatican diplomacy.
If one unknown remains, on the future steps of this pontificate in international relations, it concerns China and demands to be described in detail.
Between the Holy See and China there has been in effect since 2018 an agreement desired at all costs by Pope Francis and woven by Parolin himself, but implemented by the Beijing authorities with a crescendo of high-handedness that reached its peak precisely in the days of the sede vacante.
Not only did China not send any representative to the funeral of the deceased pontiff, but it expressed its acknowledgment of Francis’s passing in the few circumstantial words uttered by the spokesman for the ministry of foreign affairs in response to a question from a foreign journalist. And it imposed silence on official Catholic websites like “Catholic Church in China,” which presented the terse news of the pope’s death for only a few hours, soon making it disappear.
Above all, in those same days of sede vacante China announced the appointment of two new bishops, without even simulating the “a posteriori” consent of the pope required by the 2018 agreement. Two appointments that were anything but friendly toward Rome.
The first was the promotion of Wu Jianlin as auxiliary of the diocese of Shanghai, the same one where in 2023 Beijing installed as titular bishop one of its ultra-loyalists, Joseph Shen Bin, without even giving advance notice to Pope Francis, who months later had to accept the imposition, and as if the diocese did not already have two auxiliaries: Joseph Xing Wenzi, who fell from grace in 2011 and was forced to retire to private life, and above all Thaddeus Ma Daqin, ordained bishop on July 7, 2012, but from that very day under continuous arrest for the sole crime of having canceled his membership in the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the regime’s main organ of control over the Church.
The second was the appointment as bishop of Xinxiang, in the province of Henan, of another ultra-loyalist of the Communist Party, Li Jianlin, there too with a bishop already present but not officially recognized, Joseph Zhang Weizhu, repeatedly arrested for not submitting to the regime. In 2018, the new bishop of Xinxiang distinguished himself by signing the ordinance that for the whole province prohibited minors under 18 from entering churches to attend Mass.
In addition to those mentioned, in China there are other bishops deprived of their freedom.
One of these is Peter Shao Zhumin, bishop of Wenzhou, who periodically, before Christmas and Easter, is taken away to a secret location to prevent him from celebrating the festivities with his faithful, and who also in these Easter days of the change of pontificate is in some unknown place of segregation.
Another is Vincent Guo Xijing, one of the first appointed under the 2018 agreement between China and the Holy See, as auxiliary of the diocese of Mindong, but who soon retired “to live in prayer” rather than submit to the obligation to register with the official bodies, and who since last winter has been confined to his home behind a gate barred with a conspicuous chain.
Given that never was a single public word raised on the part of Pope Francis and of the top Vatican authorities to defend these martyrs of Chinese oppression, many are wondering today, with Pope Leo XIV, how long this silence can still last.
In addition, as of May 1 there went into effect in China hostile new rules – a sort of “tariff” – imposed on foreigners who temporarily set foot on Chinese soil with the intent of carrying out any activity that may have to do with religion.
On “Catholic Church in China” these rules can be read in full. In particular, foreigners are strictly prohibited from having any contact with what are called the “underground” religious communities, that is, those not recognized by the government, or with priests who have not joined the mandatory Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.
But even in the officially recognized churches, foreigners cannot mingle with residents. They must celebrate their rites alone, provided that they be officiated over by an emissary of the regime.
It is also forbidden to bring into China more than 10 books or audiovisual materials on religious subjects. And woe betide anyone who should wish to distribute such books without prior permission from the authorities, which in any case is very complicated to get.
In short, that “sinicization” of religions which is one of Xi Jinping’s dogmas has marked with these new rules a further clampdown precisely in the days of the change of pontificate.
A challenge that Leo XIV will no longer be able to shirk or endure only passively. Like Leo the Great, he too will have to confront the Attilas of our time.
(Translated by Matthew Sherry: traduttore@hotmail.com)
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Sandro Magister is past “vaticanista” of the Italian weekly L’Espresso.
The latest articles in English of his blog Settimo Cielo are on this page.
But the full archive of Settimo Cielo in English, from 2017 to today, is accessible.
As is the complete index of the blog www.chiesa, which preceded it.
