He has just been elected but already has a very busy agenda of deadlines Pope Leo XIV. Among the very first tasks of the 267th Roman Pontiff is the choice of his most direct collaborators and the leaders of the Dicasteries of the Curia, the government of the universal Church : therefore, seeing who to confirm (perhaps because their respective five-year terms have not yet expired) or appoint from scratch for the various sectors, after all the positions - starting with that of the Secretary of State, and with the exception of very few - expired with the death of Pope Francis.
Another decision to be made very soon, for the Pope, will be whether to confirm the trip that Bergoglio was supposed to make to Turkey before the end of the month for the anniversary of the Council of Nicaea : a very important event on the ecumenical level, for which the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew had always taken Francis' presence for granted, then cancelled due to illness. The trip has been prepared, however, and the new Pope will only have to decide whether to go personally, as the first trip of the pontificate, or to send his own delegate.
Among the other appointments to be set, those regarding the canonizations that have been suspended, first of all that of Carlo Acutis, the millennial saint "patron of the web", which was to take place on April 27 on the occasion of the Jubilee of adolescents. There is also that of Pier Giorgio Frassati on August 3, at the end of the Jubilee of young people, another great and eagerly awaited Jubilee event. Then those to be set - from Bartolo Longo, founder of the Shrine of Pompeii, to José Gregorio Hernández, the "people's doctor" who will be the first Venezuelan saint - to establish the date, a choice that Francis had postponed to a Consistory that however he did not have time to schedule and lead.
It will be the Jubilee chapter, with its succession of events, to change pace with the appointment of the new Pope, after the difficult start due to the illness and hospitalization of the deceased Pontiff . This Holy Year, among other things, will be the second in history after that of 1700 in which the Holy Door was opened by one Pope and closed by another. The first commitments that await the new Pontiff shortly and in rapid succession are the Jubilee of Confraternities from 16 to 18 May; the Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents and the Elderly from 30 May to 1 June; the Jubilee of Movements, Associations and new Communities from 7 to 8 June; the Jubilee of Sports from 14 to 15 June; the Jubilee of Governors from 20 to 22 June; in the following days that of Seminarians and Priests; the others will follow until the closing of the Holy Door, on 6 January 2026.
The other great "construction site" started by Pope Francis, and which in some way awaits the new Pontiff, is the three-year "implementation phase" of the Synod on synodality , which already foresees the publication of the Support Document in this month of May, the implementation paths in the local Churches and their groupings between June and December, the Jubilee of the synodal teams and participation bodies on 24-26 October, then moving forward until the "Ecclesial Assembly in the Vatican", set for October 2028. Among the thorniest issues in sight, from 22 September the appeal of the trial on the management of funds of the Holy See and the sale of the Palace of London, strongly desired by Pope Francis, which will inevitably bring back into the limelight the affair of Cardinal Angelo Becciu , and not only that.
The challenges are many: finances, the fight against abuse, the decline in vocations. Despite the many measures adopted to combat child abuse in the Church, including the abolition of the pontifical secret, the obligation to report cases to the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the creation of listening platforms, victims' associations have said they are disappointed by Pope Francis' action. The issue remains one of the greatest challenges for the Church and scandals could continue to shake religious institutions or episcopal conferences in various countries.
The Pope is also a head of state and a moral authority whose voice carries weight in a world ravaged by wars - Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza - and in full transformation, marked by the rise of populist governments, the dangers linked to the development of artificial intelligence and the ecological emergency.
And again: what place for women in the coming years? Francis has opened the doors, appointing women to key positions within the Curia. But the hopes of feminist associations for the opening to the female diaconate were extinguished at the end of the last world assembly on the future of the Church.
The new Pope will also be awaited on the lay front, whose role has been developed by Francis by introducing greater horizontality in the Church.
The 267th Pope inherits a Church of 1.4 billion faithful with a heterogeneous geography, rapidly expanding in the Southern Hemisphere and in continuous decline in Europe. At the end of 2023, the Church had 406,996 priests worldwide, a decrease of 0.2% compared to 2022. The number of priests was increasing in Africa and Asia, but declining elsewhere. The new Pope will have to deal with these different dynamics to revive church attendance and vocations, but also face competition from the Evangelical Church, particularly in Africa.
(Online Union)