Pope Leo XIV’s first year in the papacy has been marked by a series of administrative and policy moves that, as the Vatican prepares for an upcoming stretch of appointments and negotiations, also highlight the areas where his pontificate may most strain or reshape inherited decisions, according to an Associated Press review of his agenda. The AP described Leo as taking more time to “find his footing” and adopt a longer view than Pope Francis did at the start of his reforms.
Rather than focusing on sweeping institutional shakeups early on, Leo’s decisions so far have included changes aimed at church governance, finances and major Vatican initiatives. The AP noted that, in contrast to Francis’s rapid early flurry of reforms and new structures, Leo has sought what the report described as a steadier approach and has several looming challenges that could test how quickly his priorities solidify.
The review pointed to five upcoming appointment moments that could give Leo influence over U.S. church leadership and the Vatican’s central governance. In the U.S., the AP said Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich will turn 77 in March—two years beyond a normal retirement age for bishops—creating an opening for Leo to name an archbishop for his hometown. The AP added that in December, Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez will turn 75, giving Leo another chance to shape leadership for the largest U.S. archdiocese.
The AP reported that Leo has already named Archbishop Ronald Hicks to replace retiring Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, and it included commentary from Michael Moreland, a professor of law and religion at Leo’s alma mater, Villanova University. Moreland told the AP that 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 the Vatican, the AP said British Cardinal Arthur Roche turned 76 and heads the liturgy office, which had been responsible for enforcing Francis’s crackdown on the old Latin Mass. Roche’s eventual successor, the report said, could attract scrutiny because it may signal how Leo intends to address the divisive issue. The AP also said American Cardinal Kevin Farrell, described as 78 and beyond retirement age, still heads the Vatican family and laity office and serves as camerlengo, overseeing the conclave that elected Leo and certain sensitive Holy See committees tied to financial investments and the city state’s highest court of appeal.
The AP further described how Cardinal Michael Czerny’s 80th birthday in July would affect the upcoming conclave process because it would exclude him from voting. The report said that would reduce the number of voting-age cardinals to 117, below the threshold of 120 that the AP described as the usual cap for voting-age cardinals under 80. That arithmetic, according to the AP, suggests Leo could announce his first class of new cardinals in the next year.
In describing what Leo has changed from Francis’s policies, the AP said Leo canceled a Francis initiative tied to children and also suppressed an ad hoc commission that Francis had created for the event in 2024. The AP reported that the Vatican canceled Francis’s World Day of Children in April and said the cancellation followed Leo’s formal suppression of the commission. It also reported that in December Leo dissolved a Holy See fundraising commission formed in 2025 while Francis was hospitalized in his final weeks of life, describing the commission as including only Italians without professional fundraising experience and naming its president within the Secretariat of State.
The AP said Leo then announced a new committee intended to develop fundraising proposals and structures. The report also quoted Ward Fitzgerald, president of The Papal Foundation, which funds papal charity projects in developing countries: “The Holy Father was clearly paying attention,” Fitzgerald said. “He realized that it was not going to be highly functional.” The AP said Leo also abrogated a 2022 law issued by Francis that concentrated financial power in the Vatican bank, and that Leo issued his own law allowing the Holy See’s investment committee to use banks outside the Vatican if it made better financial sense.
Beyond administrative shifts, the AP described Leo meeting with activist survivors of clergy sexual abuse, who said they believed he promised to engage in dialogue as they pressed the Vatican to adopt a worldwide policy of zero tolerance for abuse. The AP contrasted that with how Francis, it said, met regularly with individual abuse survivors but kept advocacy groups at arm’s length.
The AP also described private audiences that suggested Leo’s openness to hearing a range of views. The report said that on March 16 Leo met Gareth Gore, author of “Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking and Right-Wing Conspiracy Inside the Catholic Church,” which the AP described as alleging abuses in the Opus Dei movement. It also said 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 that critics have accused Courage of being anti-gay and promoting conversion therapy, an allegation Courage denies.
Additionally, the AP said Leo met on March 5 with Stephen Bullivant and Stephen Cranney, authors of “Trads. Latin Mass Catholics in the United States,” who the report said conducted a survey about Catholics attending the traditional Latin Mass. The AP said Leo was aware of the controversy surrounding Francis’s crackdown on the Latin Mass and described him as expressing eagerness to speak with traditionalists as he weighs how to heal divisions over the old liturgy.
Among the near-term problems the AP described, the Latin Mass dispute could intensify on July 1. The report said four new traditionalist Catholic bishops would be consecrated in a ceremony without Leo’s consent, and that the bishops would belong to the breakaway Society of St. Pius X. The AP said their consecration would pose the biggest challenge to Leo’s authority to date and would amount to a schismatic act “all but ensuring their automatic excommunication,” while adding that traditionalist Catholics in full communion with the Holy See were watching what Leo would do.
On a separate front, the AP described a potential rupture with the German Catholic Church over its long-term reform process known as the Synodal Path. The AP said the Synodal Path has prompted proposals including a permanent mixed body of German bishops and lay Catholics who would jointly make decisions, which the AP said would represent a major break with Catholic governance principles that leave governing power to bishops alone. The AP said Vatican officials already oppose such a joint structure and have voiced disagreement with German proposals to formalize blessings for same-sex couples, which the AP said Francis allowed only informally and on a spontaneous basis.
The AP said those disagreements could lead to confrontation when German proposals are submitted to Rome for final approval. The AP also described one major issue expected to arrive as a priority for Leo: his first encyclical, which the AP said would likely come in the next few weeks and is expected to address artificial intelligence and other peace and justice issues.
The AP reported that Leo has already said he sees the AI revolution as similar in existential scope to the concerns over workers’ rights confronted by Pope Leo XIII in the landmark encyclical “Rerum Novarum” (“Of New Things”). The report also included commentary from Dan Rober, an associate professor of Catholic studies at Sacred Heart University, who 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.”