ROME – As Pope Leo XIV settles into his new role on the Throne of Peter, early indications are that he will respect and maintain the direction of his predecessor’s reforms for the Roman Curia, but will do so with a much softer tone.

Over the past week, the pope has met with two different groupings of the most significant curial and diplomatic bodies of the Holy See: papal diplomatic representatives and employees and officials of the Secretariat of State, and he has also celebrated a broader Jubilee of the Holy See.

While Pope Francis, a populist at heart who preferred to work around his system rather than with or through it, often chided and corrected his governing apparatus, using his first Christmas address to the Roman Curia in 2013 to outline 15 “diseases” he believed they had, Leo has adopted a tone of gratitude.

Speaking to officials and employees of the Secretariat of State in a June 5 audience, Pope Leo said in rare off-the-cuff remarks, as he usually sticks to prepared speeches, that “in these few weeks…it is evident to me that the Pope cannot work alone.”

“There is great necessity to rely on the assistance of many people in the Holy See, and in a special way on all of you in the Secretariat of State. I offer my heartfelt thanks!” he said, saying he feels “comforted” by their sharing in his responsibility.

Similarly, in a June 10 audience with apostolic nuncios, the Vatican’s diplomatic corps, for the Jubilee for Papal Representatives, Leo again began with a word of thanks, saying, “your role, your ministry, is irreplaceable.”

“The Church would be unable to give many things if it were not for the sacrifice, the work and everything that you do in order to enable such an important dimension of the great mission of the Church to proceed, and precisely in…the selection of candidates to the episcopate. Thank you from the heart for what you do!”

Leo XIV’s greetings to his nuncios and to the Secretariat of State, long seen as one of the most complex curial entities to manage and which Pope Francis went to great lengths to reform, strikes a much different tone than his predecessor often employed.

This shift is natural, in a sense: Francis was elected with a reform mandate, it was clear that in the conclave of 2013, the cardinals wanted someone who could clean house internally, who could fix the Vatican’s financial troubles and renew internal structures that were often characterized by complacency and dysfunction.

In fact, much of his papacy was spent mapping out his sweeping restructuring of the Roman Curia and attempting, to mixed success, to reform the Vatican’s economic institutions, and to change the longstanding curial mentality, according to Francis, of being self-referential, out of date, and stubbornly resistant to change.

This mentality would prompt Francis to seek constant workarounds, choosing often to avoid and exclude his curia, and rather to rely on external confidants and aides, repeatedly calling curial officials to conversion.

However, Leo was elected on a mandate to foster unity and communion in a polarized and fractured Church in a deeply divided world. He was also elected to continue the reform, but the greater emphasis by far was on preserving unity.

Leo’s initial expressions of warm reception and gratitude, and his reference to the curial and diplomatic roles in sharing his responsibilities and in carrying out the work of the pope, indicates an intention on his part to work with them, rather than around them.

Those words of affection are also likely intended, in part, to heal some of the wounds and potentially hard feelings that Francis’s frequent reproaches might have caused, however unintentional it might have been on his part.

Yet while Leo’s early approach to his curial and diplomatic apparatus might differ from that of his predecessor, his audiences this past week have also indicated that he will maintain the same general vision and reforms that Francis had begun in the curia.

For example, in his speech to the Secretariat of State, Pope Leo noted that the entity since its establishment in the 15th century “has taken on an increasingly universal character and has grown considerably.”

He noted that nearly half of the employees are lay faithful, and more than 50 are women, lay and religious.

In this sense, “the Secretariat of State itself reflects the face of the Church,” he said, saying its task is to convey the Gospel through a variety of cultures and languages while maintaining “a Catholic, universal outlook that allows us to appreciate different cultures and sensibilities.”

“In this way, we can be a driving force committed to building communion between the Church of Rome and the local Churches, as well as friendly relationships in the international community,” he said.

Leo also said the Secretariat of State must be concretely present in current global realities while maintaining the universality and “the multifaceted unity of the Church,”, which he said is a dynamic reinforced by the Second Vatican Council.

“It is precisely the Secretariat of State that offers this service of unification and synthesis,” he said, and again voiced his closeness and gratitude for “the skills you place at the service of the Church, for your work — which almost always goes unnoticed — and for the evangelical spirit that inspires it.”

He also made his own an appeal from Pope Paul VI in 1963 that the Secretariat of State “not be clouded by ambition or rivalry; instead, let it be a true community of faith and charity, of ‘brothers and sisters, and children of the Pope,’ who give themselves generously for the good of the Church.”

Pope Francis had made it his clear intention to diversify the curia and make it more reflective of the global Church by appointing to top positions individuals from all over the world, namely, outside of the west.

He also sought to root out careerism, competition and complacency while boosting the role of competent laypeople working within the curia and appointing more women to key positions of leadership and responsibility.

Leo’s support of this vision, a diverse curia composed largely of laypeople, and women, and capable of translating the Gospel across a variety of languages and cultures, indicates his structural and personnel moves will likely follow this direction.

Similarly, in his audience with papal nuncios he noted that they as a body are “an image of the Catholic Church, since a diplomatic Corps as universal as ours does not exist in any other country in the world.”

“At the same time, I believe that one may equally say that no other country in the world has a diplomatic Corps as united as you are: because your, our, communion is not merely functional, nor an idea; we are united in Christ and we are united in the Church,” he said.

It is the diplomatic corps’ job to foster peace and fraternity, he said, saying their work on behalf of the pope is primarily “to create relationships, bridges” with different individuals and nations, and to always “be the eyes of Peter! Be men capable of building relationships where it is hardest to do.”

The first task as papal representatives, Leo said, is to send the message that the Church is “always ready for everything out of love, that she is always on the side of the last, the poor, and that she will always defend the sacrosanct right to believe in God.”

Pope Leo gave nuncios a ring with an engraving reading, sub umbra Petri, meaning, “under the shadow of Peter,” stressing that, “Only in obedience and in effective communion with the Pope may your ministry be effective for the edification of the Church, in communion with the local bishops.”

Nuncios are to be, he said, “tools of communion, unity, serving the dignity of the human person, promoting sincere and constructive relations everywhere with the authorities with whom you are required to cooperate.”

Leo’s insistence on a papal diplomat’s role in fostering fraternity and in building bridges in defense of the poor is also in keeping with his predecessor’s tone and approach to engagement with international leaders and organizations.

It is also in keeping with the goal of a Vatican study group, established as part of Pope Francis’s Synod of Bishops on Synodality, evaluating the role and function of nuncios, and which is aimed at ensuring they become more missionary-minded.

Pope Leo is again demonstrating in these early weeks of his pontificate that while he intends to follow more or less the same general vision laid out by Pope Francis in some of his internal reforms, he is very much his own man, and he will do it in his own way and according to his own style – one that seeks to collaborate and unify, while propelling the Church in the direction he believes it ought to go.

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