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-View from the Vatican Pope Leo XIV sees his role as a bridge -builder VATICAN CITY - Pope Leo XIV's wide-ranging interview with a veteran Vatican journalist offered the world the first chance to hear him speak on several hot-button issues. The US pope will challenge US bishops While Leo played down ехресtations that his American background would afford him special influence with President Donald Trump, he suggested it might carry more weight with U.S. bishops, who could more easily dismiss Francis for being out of touch with their reality. Leo's vision of the church is forged in synodality Whether discussing polarization, LGBTQ+ inclusion, the role of women in the church or tensions over liturgy, the pope consistently referenced the synod on synodality as a touchstone.
-View from the Vatican
Pope Leo XIV sees his role as a bridge -builder
VATICAN CITY - Pope Leo XIV's wide-ranging interview with a veteran Vatican journalist offered the world the first chance to hear him speak on several hot-button issues.
Leo's comments provide sight how he sees his role as pope: a bridge-builder, engaging but uncontroversial, and acting as an astute administrator. The direction he proposes for the church is one where dialogue reigns supreme but doctrinal changes, for the time being, appear to be off the table.
Catholic news outlet Crux released the interview transcripts of the second of two 90-minute conversations in July with journalist Elise Ann Allen, given for a biography she was preparing on the pope.
Here are five takeaways from the interview:
1. Pope Leo gives interviews
That Leo gave a lengthy interview so soon into his pontificate marks a departure from the quiet media profile he maintained as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops. As pope, he has given doorstep interviews to journalists stationed outside of the papal summer residence near Rome. The newest interview provides the first sustained look at Leo addressing issues in his own words.
Leo's willingness to sit for a formal interview within two months of his election contrasts with Pope Francis, who waited about six months before offering his first in-depth media change. Yet had, until now, been viewed by many as mediashy - a perception shaped by his quiet demeanor in curial roles and limited press interaction.
2. The US pope will challenge US bishops
While Leo played down ехресtations that his American background would afford him special influence with President Donald Trump, he suggested it might carry more weight with U.S. bishops, who could more easily dismiss Francis for being out of touch with their reality.
Though he has not yet met the president, Leo said he is monitoring developments in U.S. politics. "Obviously, there's some things going on in the [United] States that are of concern," he said.
Leo's early episcopal appointments will offer clear signals about how he hopes the U.S. church will engage its political landscape. His first - naming San Diego Auxiliary Bishop Michael Pham to head that diocese - has already drawn attention. Pham, installed in July, is the first Vietnamese American bishop to head a U.S. diocese and а former refugee himself.
Whether American bishops - long wary of aspects of Francis' vision for the church - will respond differently under a pope who knows their terrain remains uncertain. But Leo shows little sign of shrinking from the challenge.
3. Leo's vision of the church is forged in synodality
Whether discussing polarization, LGBTQ+ inclusion, the role of women in the church or tensions over liturgy, the pope consistently referenced the synod on synodality as a touchstone. For Leo, the synodal process appeared not merely as an event he participated in, but as the framework through which he will discern the church's future.
Leo's synodal outlook was formed not only during his highprofile role at the 2024 synod assembly at the Vatican as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, but also earlier, in 2022, when he launched the synodal process at the diocesan level as bishop of Chiclayo, Peru.
Leo described synodality in the interview as "an attitude, an openness, a willingness to understand."
Leo held private audiences with two figures emblematic of opposing poles within U.S. Catholicism: Cardinal Raymond Burke, a prominent Francis critic who denounced synodality as a threat to the integrity of the church, and Jesuit Fr. James Martin, an advocate for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the church whose ministry of LGBTQ+ outreach received repeated signs of support from Francis.
Rather than signal a doublingdown or a reversal of Francis, these gestures suggest something more characteristic of Leo's emerging style: a synodal approach to governing the church.
For all the criticism Francis' synodal process received, it may well have served as an incubator for his successor.
4. An apostle of administration
The state of the Vatican's finances was a top concern among cardinals leading into the conclave that elected Leo. Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich told America magazine that the ongoing reform of the Curia, including getting the Vatican's finances in order and long-term management of its pension fund, was the issue of greatest concern at the beginning of the papacy.
Leo, for his part, projected calm. "Things are going to be OK," he said in the interview, acknowledging the need for tinued but rejecting the narrative of a financial crisis.
Part of that confidence stems from experience. Before his election, Leo said, he had served on multiple Vatican financial councils. He had earned a reputation among curial colleagues as a steady, capable administrator. As prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, he led one of the Holy See's most consequential departments and he now brings that tional knowledge the papacy.
Leo appears to recognize that part of his mandate is to get the Vatican running more effectively, not only financially but also ministratively. If initial signs hold, the Leo papacy could usher in a next phase of curial reform that institutionalizes the synodal attitude he repeatedly returns to.
5. Hosting dialogue while holding doctrine
Unity has emerged as one of Leo's defining priorities. He has touched on the theme time and again in his early remarks as pope, and it seems he will continue to place a premium on it when engaging with thorny doctrinal questions.
In the interview, Leo expressed openness to ongoing conversations around topics such as LGBTQ+ inclusion, the role of women in the church, and the reception of pre-Vatican-II liturgy. But he also made clear that such conversations will not result in a change of church teaching, at least immediately.
On LGBTQ+ issues he stressed the importance of learning "to understand how to accept others who are different than we are," but he later said in reference to people calling for the recognition of gay marriage and transgender identities in church teaching: "I think that the church's teaching will continue as it is, and that's what I have to say about that for right now."
Where Francis broke new ground by opening space for discussion, Leo may represent a next step: sustaining the conversation while signaling that church teaching remains intact. How that tension will manifest in practice is not yet clear. But for now, it appears to be a balancing act that offers something to both reform-minded Catholics and those concerned about doctrinal stability.
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