Editor’s note: This article is adapted from the Laetare lecture on March 26, given in New York after the author was awarded the Loyola Medal by the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola.
Pope Francis’ vast legacy will take a generation to unpack. But already it is being developed in Pope Leo XIV, who was “the last surprise of Pope Francis” according to the subtitle of a recent account of the conclave that elected him from America correspondent Gerard O’Connell and Elisabetta Piqué. The cardinals spoke in the weeks before that election a year ago of the need to press on with the era opened by Francis, which they sought to capture in such words as humble, pastoral, merciful, synodal, missionary, discerning and fraternal.
Reflecting their desires, Leo told the cardinals right after the conclave that he would “continue on the journey” Francis had started. He described it as “renewing the path of the Second Vatican Council,” which, he said, Francis “masterfully and concretely set forth” in his first great teaching document, “The Joy of the Gospel” (“Evangelii Gaudium”).
