Pope Leo XIV’s agenda one year into his papacy mixes long-term governance planning with a set of issues that continue to strain the Catholic Church, particularly matters tied to how Pope Francis handled reforms. Instead of rushing reforms early, Leo has leaned toward laying groundwork, according to reporting that frames his approach as a longer view of what he wants to change and what he wants to stabilize.
A central part of that approach is his handling of vacancies and retirements that can determine the leadership of dioceses in the United States and the Vatican’s governing machinery. The reporting identifies several key opportunities ahead, including a potential appointment linked to Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich reaching 77 in March and Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez turning 75 in December. It also points to an earlier replacement in New York: Leo named Archbishop Ronald Hicks to replace retiring Cardinal Timothy Dolan, an appointment that was described by a law-and-religion professor as not “ideologically code[ing] dramatically one way or the other,” fitting Leo’s broader decision-making style.
At the Vatican, the article highlights the importance of looming succession decisions as well as current governance roles. It describes British Cardinal Arthur Roche as leading the liturgy office, and it notes that Roche’s succession would be scrutinized given his role in enforcing Francis’ controversial crackdown on the old Latin Mass. The reporting also identifies American Cardinal Kevin Farrell as heading the family and laity office, serving as camerlengo who oversaw the conclave that elected Leo, and leading sensitive Holy See committees tied to financial investments and the city state’s highest court of appeal.
The same roadmap points to Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny, who turns 80 in July. That milestone would exclude Czerny from voting in the next conclave, the reporting says, lowering the number of voting-age cardinals to 117 below the typical cap of 120 used for cardinals under 80. The article links that to the likelihood that Leo could announce his first class of new cardinals within the next year, setting up another chance to shape future governance beyond his immediate appointments.
In parallel with leadership planning, the reporting describes concrete moves Leo has made to change specific policies associated with Francis’ final years and earlier reforms. It says Leo canceled the Vatican’s World Day of Children initiative, and that the cancellation followed Leo’s suppression of an ad hoc pontifical commission Francis had created for the event in 2024. It also reports that in December Leo dissolved a Holy See fundraising commission created in 2025 under circumstances described as questionable, noting the commission included only Italians without fundraising experience and that its president was the assessor of the Secretariat of State—the same Vatican office Francis had earlier stripped of the ability to manage assets after it lost tens of millions of euros in a London property scandal.
According to the reporting, Leo then announced a new committee to develop fundraising proposals and structures. Ward Fitzgerald, president of The Papal Foundation—a group of wealthy U.S. donors that funds papal charity projects in the developing world—was quoted saying: “The Holy Father was clearly paying attention… He realized that it was not going to be highly functional.” The article also says Leo abrogated a 2022 law issued by Francis that concentrated financial power in the Vatican bank, and issued a new law allowing the Holy See’s investment committee to use banks outside the Vatican if it made better financial sense.
The reporting further says Leo has used private audiences to signal which issues he is willing to hear directly from different sides, even if he does not reveal much about his own opinions. It says Leo met March 16 with Gareth Gore, author of “Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking and Right-Wing Conspiracy Inside the Catholic Church,” relating to alleged abuses in Opus Dei, and that Leo met Feb. 6 with a delegation from Courage International, which describes itself as helping people with same-sex attraction live chastely. It also reports that Leo met March 5 with Stephen Bullivant and Stephen Cranney, authors of “Trads. Latin Mass Catholics in the United States,” after their survey work on Catholics who attend the traditional Latin Mass.
Those audience signals feed into one of the report’s central projections about Leo’s near-term work: the Latin Mass dispute and the divisions that followed Francis’ crackdown on the old liturgy. The article notes the dispute could come to a head July 1, when four new traditionalist Catholic bishops are consecrated in a ceremony without Leo’s consent. It says the bishops belong to the breakaway Society of St. Pius X, and it frames their consecration as the biggest challenge to Leo’s authority to date, describing it as a schismatic act that would lead to their automatic excommunication if performed—adding that traditionalist Catholics in full communion with the Holy See are watching what Leo will do.
On the other side of the liturgy-reform divide, the reporting describes the Vatican facing the prospect of a major break with Germany’s Catholic Church over its long-term reform effort known as the Synodal Path. It says that process has led to a proposal for a permanent mixed body of German bishops and lay Catholics to jointly make decisions, which the report characterizes as challenging Catholic ecclesiology by shifting governing power away from bishops alone. The article says the Vatican has already signaled opposition to such a joint structure and has also voiced disagreement with proposals to formalize blessings for same-sex couples that Francis had allowed only on an informal, spontaneous basis—setting up the prospect of confrontation when the German proposals are submitted to Rome for final approval.
While some would see Leo’s relationship with President Donald Trump and the possibility of a trip to the United States as the top issue, the reporting says Leo would likely point instead to what it describes as his long-awaited first encyclical. Expected in the coming weeks, the encyclical is said to deal with artificial intelligence and other peace and justice issues. The reporting says Leo has already described the AI revolution as similar in existential scope to workers’ rights concerns confronted by Pope Leo XIII in his landmark encyclical “Rerum Novarum” (“Of New Things”), and it quotes Dan Rober, associate professor of Catholic studies at Sacred Heart University, saying: “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.”
As the next few weeks and months bring those confrontations and appointments into focus, Leo’s first-year moves—reshaping governance roles, adjusting policies attributed to Francis, and building relationships with multiple audiences—set the terms for how his papacy will handle both institutional administration and the most volatile disputes inside Catholic life.