The decisions that will define Pope Leo’s first days

From choosing his residence to addressing declining church attendance, the sex abuse crisis and the Vatican’s finances, crucial choices await Pope Leo.

Once he picked his papal name, the tricky choices facing the new pontiff will come thick and fast, starting with where he wants to live.

Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, swapped the isolation of the Vatican’s papal apartment for a room at the bustling Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican’s residence for visiting prelates.

It is a tough question, with consequences. By moving back into the regal papal apartment, will Pope Leo risk looking aloof after Francis’s man-of-the-people choice of accommodation? Or will it send a positive message to cardinals who alleged that Francis ran the Vatican from the Casa Santa Marta with an inner circle of trusted assistants, ignoring the city state’s machinery of government?

“Pope Francis hollowed out the Vatican’s secretariat of state by shifting its finances to another department,” said Vatican expert Massimo Franco. He argued that the move was a reaction to the overarching power of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the man who was running the secretariat when Francis was elected. “But Francis overcompensated and damaged the government of the church,” Franco said.

In the 12th and final meeting held by cardinals on Tuesday before the conclave, they “reflected on the power of the Pope,” the Vatican’s spokesman said, suggesting they too wanted less of a monarch and more of a committee man.

Reports from the meetings indicated that they demanded more involvement in the running of the church after Francis summoned them to consistories — a formal meeting of the College of Cardinals — in Rome only twice.

That meant when they were hurriedly summoned to pick the new pope, many were strangers to each other and struggled to make the biggest choice they will ever face.

“The Cardinals spoke about the need to make the meetings of the College of Cardinals more significant on the occasion of consistories,” the Vatican said — advice that the new pope will be foolish to ignore.

There can also be no ignoring the noisy conservatives who are furious about Francis’s approval of the blessing of gay couples or his outreach to Muslims. One way to placate them may be to loosen Francis’s restrictions on the traditional Latin mass they favour.

Another question will be how seriously to take the continuing series of synods Francis kick-started to improve grassroots involvement in the Church, which are due to continue into 2028. Hardcore Francis backers love the synods but others have called them talking shops that lack any focus. “A friend of Francis’s conceded to me that the synods were out of control and without conclusion,” Franco said.

Looming above the in-house management is the challenge of declining church attendance in Europe, starting with Germany where 321,000 Catholics left the Church last year and where only 29 new priests were ordained.

The new pontiff will need to decide: are the flock deserting the Church because it is becoming too liberal, or not liberal enough?

Pope Francis giving the Urbi et Orbi blessing from St. Peter’s Basilica balcony to a large crowd in St. Peter’s Square.

German attendance is crucial because the country — alongside the US — has long been a huge contributor to the Vatican’s coffers, which are perilously stretched after years in which the Church’s reputation has been scarred by sex abuse and financial scandals.

With the Vatican pension fund showing a shortfall of €631 million in 2022, it is no wonder Pope Francis set up a new commission to encourage donations.

Cardinals will also be looking closely at how the newly-elected pope battles against the conflicts sweeping the world. They made their feelings clear in a rare joint statement issued before entering the conclave. Describing their “regret” that there was no progress in peace talks in Ukraine and Gaza, they appealed to “all sides” to put down their arms.

During his papacy, Francis earned the opprobrium of Israel by calling for an investigation into whether Israel’s campaign in Gaza constituted genocide.

Massimo Faggioli, a professor of historical theology at Villanova University in the US, said the Church now needed to use all its diplomatic prowess in its relationship with Israel. He said: “The relationship between Catholics and Jews needs to be maintained however bad the relationship with Israel becomes. The worsening of that relationship is a real concern.”

Finally, sex abuse by priests is the problem that refuses to go away, meaning the pontiff cannot muddle though. According to Bishop Accountability, a US group that monitors abuse, the new pope could start by doing something Francis or his predecessors shied away from.

“Universalise the ‘zero tolerance’ canonical norm that has been in effect for the US church for more than two decades,” it said in a list of advice. “That is, change canon [law] 1398 so that any cleric found guilty of even a single act of child sexual abuse, no matter when the act occurred, will be removed permanently from ministry,” it said.

The Times