Unlike Pope Francis, who launched reforms and structural changes early on, Pope Leo XIV has used his first year to “find his footing” and take a longer view of his pontificate, according to the Associated Press’s review of what Leo has done so far and what lies ahead. The account points to leadership appointments, adjustments to Vatican fundraising and finance rules, and private meetings that signal which internal church factions he is willing to engage. With major governance issues approaching, the Vatican faces tests tied to both the Latin Mass dispute and Germany’s long-running reform process.
Leo’s “longer view” has played out alongside decisions that, in the AP account, aim to alter how the Vatican handles governance, fundraising, and internal controversies. The story frames his first-year record as a mix of concrete changes and a set of challenges still approaching, with several major appointments and Vatican-office transitions expected to offer him chances to “shape the church’s hierarchy and central governance” more closely to his priorities.
On the appointment front, the AP review lists several dates that could generate new leadership in the U.S. and at key Vatican posts. It notes that Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich turned 77 in March, which is two years over the normal retirement age for bishops, potentially opening the way for Leo to name an archbishop for his hometown. It also points to Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez’s 75th birthday in December as another moment when Leo could choose a new leader for the largest U.S. archdiocese. The account adds that Leo has already named Archbishop Ronald Hicks to replace Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, and it includes the view of Michael Moreland, a professor of law and religion at Villanova University, who said the appointment “didn’t ideologically code dramatically one way or the other … in keeping with Leo’s overall kind of approach to a lot of these decisions.”
At Vatican offices, the AP story highlights transitions that could affect how the pope manages established disputes. It says British Cardinal Arthur Roche turned 76 and heads the liturgy office that enforced Francis’s crackdown on the old Latin Mass, and it describes Roche’s eventual successor as likely to face scrutiny over whether Leo will change course on the divisive liturgy issue. The account also identifies American Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who is 78 and heads the family and laity office and serves as camerlengo, overseeing the conclave that elected Leo and holding roles connected to financial investments and the city state’s highest court of appeal.
The AP review also discusses how Leo’s choices intersect with the timing of a potential next conclave, noting that Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny will reach 80 in July. It says Czerny’s 80th birthday will both make him the oldest Vatican prefect and remove him from voting in the next conclave. The story adds that would reduce the number of voting-age cardinals to 117, below the threshold of 120 that is described as the usual cap, which in turn suggests Leo could announce his first class of new cardinals within the next year.
In policy terms, the AP account describes Leo as moving to clean up certain matters that Francis had started. It says Leo canceled the Vatican’s World Day of Children, an initiative associated with questions about its aims and meaning, and it ties the cancellation to Leo’s suppression of an ad hoc pontifical commission Francis had created for the event in 2024. It also says that in December Leo dissolved a Holy See fundraising commission created in 2025 under “questionable circumstances,” describing it as including only Italians with no professional fundraising experience and as having a president who held an assessor role in the Secretariat of State, the same office that Francis had previously stripped of its power to manage assets after a scandal involving a London property deal.
The AP story says Leo then announced a new committee to develop fundraising proposals and structures, and it includes a quote from Ward Fitzgerald, president of The Papal Foundation, a U.S. donor group that funds papal charity projects in the developing world. Fitzgerald said: “The Holy Father was clearly paying attention. He realized that it was not going to be highly functional.” The review also says Leo abrogated a 2022 law Francis issued that concentrated financial power in the Vatican bank, replacing it with Leo’s own law that allows the Holy See’s investment committee to use banks outside the Vatican when it makes better financial sense.
The AP review also points to several private audiences as an indicator of the pope’s interests and willingness to hear different viewpoints. It says Leo met on March 16 with Gareth Gore, author of “Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking and Right-Wing Conspiracy Inside the Catholic Church,” about alleged abuses in Opus Dei. It also reports that on Feb. 6 Leo met privately with a delegation from Courage International, a church-run organization that says it helps people with same-sex attraction live chastely, and it notes that critics have accused Courage of being anti-gay and promoting conversion therapy, charges the group denies. The account says that on March 5 Leo met with Stephen Bullivant and Stephen Cranney, authors of “Trads. Latin Mass Catholics in the United States,” after they conducted a survey about Catholics who attend the traditional Latin Mass, and it says Leo has expressed eagerness to speak with traditionalists as he weighs how to heal divisions over the old liturgy.
The review describes two disputes that could become flashpoints for Leo’s authority. On the traditionalist side, it says the Latin Mass disagreement could come to a head on July 1 when four new traditionalist Catholic bishops are consecrated in a ceremony “without Leo’s consent.” It says the bishops are connected to the Society of St. Pius X and describes their consecration as the biggest challenge to Leo’s authority to date, adding that if carried out it would amount to a schismatic act and would lead to their automatic excommunication. The story frames the SSPX as a fringe group within Catholic traditionalism but says traditionalist Catholics in full communion with the Holy See are watching what Leo decides.
On the other side, the AP account says the Vatican could face a major break with the German Catholic Church over its reform process known as the Synodal Path. It says the German proposals include a permanent mixed body of German bishops and lay Catholics that would jointly make decisions, which the story describes as a break with Catholic ecclesiology that places governing power with bishops. It adds that the Vatican has already said it opposes such a joint structure and has voiced disagreement with German proposals to formalize blessings for same-sex couples—describing Francis as having allowed blessings only on an informal, spontaneous basis—and that a confrontation could come when the German proposals are submitted to Rome for final approval.
The AP review closes by saying some observers would point to Leo’s relationship with President Donald Trump and a possible U.S. trip—while noting that none is planned this year—but it suggests Leo would likely point instead to an encyclical expected in the next few weeks. The account says the encyclical deals with artificial intelligence and other peace and justice issues, and it reports that Leo has already compared the AI revolution’s “existential scope” to concerns addressed by Pope Leo XIII in “Rerum Novarum” and included a quote from Dan Rober, an associate professor of Catholic studies at Sacred Heart University. Rober said: “Like his namesake Leo XIII with the Industrial Revolution, Leo clearly sees the church as having something important to offer in an era of what may turn out to be epochal technological change.”