Christopher R. Altieri
Leo XIV: The New Pope and Catholic Reform
Bloomsbury (Bloomsbury Continuum)
2 October 2025
224 pages
ISBN: 978-1-399-43090-6
This book is not so much a biography of Pope Leo XIV as “a view of the office into which Leo has come”. In other words, much of the book concerns the state of the Church that the new pope has inherited—and, as Altieri makes clear, the Church is not in a good state. As he concludes, “his pontificate will have to wrestle with converging crises driven by an inveterate inability to address the cultural motors of abuse and cover-up, general governance, a loss of the Church’s own sense of history, and a leadership culture that is sclerotic if not necrotic ….” The author is well placed to make such judgments, having worked for several decades in Rome, first with Vatican Radio and later with the Catholic Herald. As a professional journalist, his writing style is engaging and accessible.
Altieri begins by recalling his own thoughts during the conclave following the death of Pope Francis, reflecting on the immense task awaiting the soon-to-be-elected pope (whom he assumed could not be an American). The new pontiff would inherit a Church suffering from “exhaustion at the end of a twelve-year whirlwind pontificate; global sociopolitical and economic disruption; Vatican insolvency and general dysfunction”. In the second half of the book, these issues are revisited in greater detail. Hence the subtitle: The New Pope and Catholic Reform. Reform of the Church, Altieri argues, must be the principal task of the new pope—largely in response to the turbulent style of governance adopted by Pope Francis.
A simple biography of Robert Prevost is provided, recounting his childhood in Chicago, vocation to the Augustinian order, and his path from prior general of the order to eight years as bishop of Chiclayo in Peru, followed by two years as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops in the Vatican. The “hand of providence,” Altieri suggests, was clearly at work in giving the future pope such a résumé: “Prevost’s career, his language skills, missionary background, legal training, and experience all conspired to recommend him.”
From the outset, Leo has opted for a “radical moderation”—rowing back on some of the innovations of Pope Francis and returning to more conventional ways of doing things (even in small but significant details of papal attire). This was precisely what many of the cardinal electors were seeking in the new pope. One of the greatest problems facing the Church, Altieri observes, is the “civil war” between those who are pro- and anti-Francis: “The vociferous defensive and often reactionary posture of Francis’ most zealous defenders, combined with the impatience and ill temper of his implacable critics, and with a curated secular media narrative of Francis as the maverick reformer and poster boy for pet liberal social causes, added to the mix …” Hence the special significance of the first words of Pope Leo from the central loggia above St. Peter’s Basilica: “Peace be with you all.” This Augustinian pope is thus charged with restoring true peace in the Church—peace understood, in the Augustinian sense, as tranquillitas ordinis, “the tranquillity of order.”
Altieri highlights two features of the new pope as especially important: that “Leo thinks carefully about how his words will strike hearers of different stripes,” and that “Leo sees the world through an Augustinian lens”. To understand him, one must understand St. Augustine—particularly his conviction that it is the role of law “to help establish and maintain the order necessary for people in society to achieve their temporal and spiritual purposes: concord in this life and happiness in the next.”
As for the papal name chosen by Robert Prevost, Altieri quotes Leo’s own explanation: it was “mainly because Pope Leo XIII, in his historic encyclical Rerum novarum, addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution …” The new pope believes the Church must now respond to the contemporary revolution in fields that are profoundly changing human life: “artificial intelligence, biotechnologies, data economy, and social media,” which, he warns, risk eclipsing human nature itself.
The second half of the book—beginning with an interlude entitled “The State of the Vatican (and the State of the Church)”—deals with the various crises facing Pope Leo: “communications (and the related issues of curial culture and ‘synodality’), financial reform, and the administration of justice in the Church.” Pope Francis’s approach was, in the words of one Vatican journalist, “reform on the go”—lacking a clear programme, preferring to stir things up and then discern the next steps in a “trial and error” fashion. Furthermore, “the implicit conflation of the mind of the Church with the mind of the pope,” which marked the previous papacy, is already being addressed by Pope Leo, who has been “most careful to express gratitude for the work of curial officials high and low, and solicitude for their well-being.”
Altieri also describes the perilous financial situation of the Vatican, which is facing a massive and growing budget crisis, the resolution of which will require reform of the Roman curial culture. The reform of justice facing the incoming pope receives a full chapter of its own, some of it dedicated to the “macabre tale” of Fr. Marko Rupnik, a now-former Jesuit and renowned mosaic artist credibly accused by dozens of victims of “serial sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse.” Eight pages of notes at the back of the book provide further details on the Rupnik affair—which amounts to a terrible own goal on the part of the Vatican.
In the concluding chapter, Altieri offers a sober summation of the task facing Pope Leo XIV: “The pontificate of Leo XIV is only just beginning. It will not be smooth sailing. There are too many crises facing the Church and society for it to be anything other than fraught with danger and adventure. There is no guarantee that he will do well.”
If you would like a very readable, forthright and realistic portrayal of the challenges facing the new pope, this is the book for you. The author does not paint a rosy picture of the state of society or the Church at large, but he does inspire sympathy for the new pontiff and the immense task that has fallen on his shoulders.