Pope Leo recently met with the Curia to share his Christmas greetings. Last year he attended as a cardinal — this time as pope. His address was an internal assessment of the Holy See, which included a reminder to all those serving in the various departments of the Curia.
LEO XIV
We need an increasingly missionary Roman Curia, where institutions, offices, and tasks are conceived with today’s major ecclesial, pastoral, and social challenges in mind, and not merely to ensure ordinary administration.
Pope Leo also took the opportunity to warn against polarization hidden within the Vatican, recalling the communion to which all in the Church are called.
LEO XIV
At times, behind an apparent calm, the ghosts of division stir. And these lead us to fall into the temptation of oscillating between two opposite extremes: standardizing everything without valuing differences, or, on the contrary, exacerbating diversity and points of view instead of seeking communion.
In any workplace, including the Curia, it can be difficult to maintain healthy relationships, which is all the more why the Pope recognized the beauty of them.
LEO XIV
Is it possible to be friends in the Roman Curia, to have relationships of friendly fraternity? In daily effort, it is beautiful when we find friends we can trust, when masks and deceptions fall away, when people are not used or trampled upon, when there is mutual help, when each person’s value and competence are recognized, avoiding the generation of dissatisfaction and resentment.
As is customary, the Pope greeted each member of the Curia one by one after his address. And, as Pope Francis used to do, he also gave them a gift—and not just any gift.
On his return from Lebanon, the Pope told journalists that if they wanted to get to know him better, they should read the book The Practice of the Presence of God by a Carmelite friar, Br. Lawrence.
It was this same book that Pope Leo chose to give to the senior officials of the Holy See. If the hint into his spiritual life wasn't already clear from the Lebanon press conference earlier this month, it is now.
