Crux

[Editor’s Note: These are the fifth excerpts of a two-part interview between Pope Leo XIV and Crux Senior Correspondent Elise Ann Allen contained in her new biography of the pontiff, León XIV: ciudadano del mundo, misionero del siglo XXI, or “Leo XIV: Citizen of the World, Missionary of the XXI Century.” The book is published in Spanish by Penguin Peru and will be available for purchase in stores and online Sept. 18. English and Portuguese editions will be available in early 2026.]

Allen: I want to follow up on that later, on the topic of artificial intelligence and the crisis you are describing, but in terms of the polarization and division you were speaking about, it’s no secret that that had a significant impact on Pope Francis’s papacy, the criticism he faced and how he was seen. Is this something you are worried about as you step into the same role?

Pope Leo: Going back to what I see my role as being, I don’t feel the need to complicate my role because my role is announcing the Good News, preaching the Gospel. I think the Gospel addresses some of these questions from a basis which comes out of a sense of being sons and daughters of God, who is Creator, of God who sent His Son, who incarnated among us and who taught us the value of human life, keeping an eye on eternal life. If we lose the horizon, you lose your compass, you may be wandering in vain and not knowing where to go.

So, in one sense, I don’t see my primary role as trying to be the solver of the world’s problems. I don’t see my role as that at all, really, although I think that the Church has a voice, a message that needs to continue to be preached, to be spoken and spoken loudly. The values that the Church will promote in dealing with some of these world crises don’t come out of the blue, they come out the Gospel. They come from a place that makes very clear how we understand the relationships between God and us, and between one another. Going back to the very basic things of respecting one another, respecting human dignity: where does that human dignity come from and how can we use that as a way of saying the world can be a better place, and we can treat one another better?

There have been periods of time when that voice has been lost or ignored or less valued. Yet it’s very interesting to see in countries like France, which for a period of time was considered one of the most secularized countries that was around. Yesterday I met with a group of young French men and women. There were thousands last year who freely, young adults now, sought baptism. They want to come to the church because they realized that their lives are empty, or are missing something, or don’t have meaning, and they’re discovering something again that the church has to offer. Along those lines, I believe my mission has to be and is very clear in saying, where do we start, where are we going, and then how can that message also have meaning when we look at geopolitics and the kinds of situations we’re talking about.

Unfortunately, even the Gospel has become ideological today…

That’s part of the polarization issue. If we fall into ideology, we’re no longer talking about the real essence, the values that are there. We’re becoming locked into something that, as an ideology, takes over what the real meaning is. The ideology wants to use the Gospel rather than saying the Gospel is what we should be focusing on. It can be on both sides or many sides in terms of the interpretation someone gives, if they’re not willing to re-understand the authentic message that’s there.

I want to shift to something we spoke about in our previous conversation, and which you also mentioned in your first speech, and that is synodality, the Synodal Church. I think the concept of synodality is still something many people struggle to understand. How would you define it?

I think that synodality is an attitude, an openness, a willingness to understand, speaking of the Church now, that each and every member of the church has a voice and a role to play. That through prayer, reflection – the method that was used in the recent synod, which has been called ‘conversation in the spirit’ – but through a process, and there’s many ways that that could happen, of dialogue and respect of one another. To bring people together and to understand that relationship, that interaction, that creating opportunities of encounter, is an important dimension of how we live our life as church.

Some people have felt threatened by that. Sometimes bishops or priests might feel, ‘synodality is going to take away my authority’. That’s not what synodality is about, and maybe your idea of what your authority is, is somewhat out of focus, mistaken. I think that synodality is a way of describing how we can come together and be a community and seek communion as a church, so that it’s a church whose primary focus is not on an institutional hierarchy, but rather on a sense of we together, our church; each person with his or her own vocation, priests, or laity, or bishops, missionaries, families. Everyone with a specific vocation that they’ve been given has a role to play and something to contribute, and together we look for the way to grow and walk together as church.

It’s an attitude which I think can teach a lot to the world today. A little bit ago we were talking about polarization. I think this is sort of an antidote. I think this is a way of addressing some of the greatest challenges that we have in the world today. If we listen to the Gospel, and if we reflect upon it together, and if we strive to walk forward together, listening to one another, trying to discover what God is saying to us today, there is a lot to be gained for us there.

I do very much hope that the process that began long before the last synod, at least in Latin America – I spoke about my experience there. Some of the Latin American church has really contributed to the universal church – I think there’s great hope if we can continue to build on the experience of the past couple years and find ways of being church together. Not to try and transform the church into some kind of democratic government, which if we look at many countries around the world today, democracy is not necessarily a perfect solution to everything. But respecting, understanding the life of the Church for what it is and saying, ‘we have to do this together’. I think that offers a great opportunity to the Church and offers an opportunity for the Church to engage with the rest of the world. Since the time of the Second Vatican Council, I think that’s been significant, and there’s a lot to be done yet.

I assume you mean it can be an antidote to many of the things we’ve been talking about so far, polarization, etc. Does that come from personal experience in terms of the way you did things in Chiclayo, and Trujillo?

I suppose in part. I think that both personal style, my own personality, the gifts that I have been given, the way that I approach even the sense of leadership. A leader who’s walking by himself isn’t leading anyone, but if a leader is capable of bringing people together with himself or herself and moving forward, I think that’s a lot more effective. In that sense, synodality does offer a kind of an instrument, a platform, a tool that can be very helpful within the church and also in the world.