Pope Leo XIV’s Installation Homily: Become “a leaven for a reconciled world.”

In his homily for his Mass of Installation on Sunday, Pope Leo XIV listed concerns championed by Pope Francis himself throughout his pontificate—including the care for creation. Differences in how both pontiffs framed them within their inaugural homilies, however, should not go unnoticed. Indeed, their individual styles and their emphases offer hints at how our newly installed Successor of Saint Peter will use the papal pulpit.

As I posted about after its delivery in 2013, Pope Francis drew inspiration for his inaugural homily from the feast that shared the day—the Feast of Saint Joseph on March 19th. It was inspiring homiletics and catechesis, connecting Joseph’s role as a protector of the Holy Family with his role as a protector of the universal church—and more. Likewise, Francis preached, we are to be protectors in a world under attack on multiple fronts. Most especially, we are to protect God’s creation.

In Francis’s words:

The vocation of being a “protector”, however, is not just something involving us Christians alone; it also has a prior dimension which is simply human, involving everyone. It means protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world, as the Book of Genesis tells us and as Saint Francis of Assisi showed us. It means respecting each of God’s creatures and respecting the environment in which we live. It means protecting people, showing loving concern for each and every person, especially children, the elderly, those in need, who are often the last we think about. It means caring for one another in our families: husbands and wives first protect one another, and then, as parents, they care for their children, and children themselves, in time, protect their parents. It means building sincere friendships in which we protect one another in trust, respect, and goodness. In the end, everything has been entrusted to our protection, and all of us are responsible for it. Be protectors of God’s gifts!

Pope Leo likewise made mention this Sunday of environmental protection, along with other worldly matters. But he didn't emphasize them.

Statistically, Pope Francis devoted about twenty percent of his (just over) fourteen-hundred word inaugural homily to the topic of eco-protection. His successor's twelve-hundred word homily devoted only several words.

In short, Leo XIV’s homily was a different sort of blueprint for his papacy. The focus for Leo, in his new role as Saint Peter’s successor, came through what we know of Peter in the Gospels.

“The ministry of Peter is distinguished precisely by this self-sacrificing love,” the Supreme Pontiff said, “because the Church of Rome presides in charity and its true authority is the charity of Christ. It is never a question of capturing others by force, by religious propaganda or by means of power. Instead, it is always and only a question of loving as Jesus did.”

Benedict XVI put it this way in his 2005 encyclical Deus Caritas Est:

It consists in the very fact that, in God and with God, I love even the person whom I do not like or even know. This can only take place on the basis of an intimate encounter with God, an encounter which has become a communion of will, even affecting my feelings. Then I learn to look on this other person not simply with my eyes and my feelings, but from the perspective of Jesus Christ. His friend is my friend. Going beyond exterior appearances, I perceive in others an interior desire for a sign of love, of concern. This I can offer them not only through the organizations intended for such purposes, accepting it perhaps as a political necessity. Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can give to others much more than their outward necessities; I can give them the look of love which they crave. (18)

Like his two predecessors, Pope Leo prioritizes an encounter with God and His love as the means by which we can engage the world—not with an intent to dominate, but to heal.

“In this our time,” Pope Leo reflected, “we still see too much discord, too many wounds caused by hatred, violence, prejudice, the fear of difference, and an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth’s resources and marginalises the poorest.”

He continued,

For our part, we want to be a small leaven of unity, communion and fraternity within the world. We want to say to the world, with humility and joy: Look to Christ! Come closer to him! Welcome his word that enlightens and consoles! Listen to his offer of love and become his one family: in the one Christ, we are one. This is the path to follow together, among ourselves but also with our sister Christian churches, with those who follow other religious paths, with those who are searching for God, with all women and men of good will, in order to build a new world where peace reigns!

Pope Leo’s mention of eco-issues is certainly reassuring. His framing and placement of the matter, however, should be even more reassuring. As noted often in these pages (for instance here, here, and here), Catholic ecologists must first be men and women of faith. We must first embrace the fullness of the Gospel before embracing our efforts in social and environmental justice.

None of this is meant to put the two pontiffs at odds. But we should be mindful of the differences in emphasis.

There is not doubt that Pope Leo will continue to emphasize the Church’s teachings on environmental protection—as did Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. Each did so in their own ways: John Paul II within a philosophical and anthropological understanding of a fallen race redeemed by Christ; Benedict XVI within his theological insights rooted in a proper understanding of love, charity, and truth; and Francis within the context of the human calling in light of salvation history—from creation to the new creation in Jesus Christ.

Likewise, Pope Leo XIV expresses our worldly responsibilities within the great call of the Church—the building of unity in love—a love that must be for all people.

As he put it,

Brothers and sisters, this is the hour for love! The heart of the Gospel is the love of God that makes us brothers and sisters. With my predecessor Leo XIII, we can ask ourselves today: If this criterion “were to prevail in the world, would not every conflict cease and peace return?” (Rerum Novarum, 20)

And, indeed, by gazing first on the heart of the Gospel—on the love of God—would not humanity better care for the very creation that God has given us to nurture? And would we not do so as brothers and sisters, made in His image, united in love for the ages to come?

Most assuredly, friends, Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate will help us answer those questions with confidence and joy in the affirmative.