Leo to cardinals: 'I need your support'

While the world looks to Pope Leo for moral authority, he's looking to the cardinals for moral support. Br Mark O'Connor has been in Rome as the cardinals met against a backdrop of escalating conflicts and Leo's interventions on the limits of war. He tells Julie Thorpe that Leo's message to the cardinals sets a clear direction for a synodal church in continuity with Francis' papacy. Leo's first encyclical and his recent visit to Spain – where his appeal to Europe's complex past and focus on migrants came to the fore – reveal a pope finding his voice amid pressure from both the geopolitical stage and the church's internal critics.

Recommendations:

• Mark O'Connor's first and second 'soundings from Rome' in Catholic Outlook
• Pope Leo's address to Spanish leaders
• Massimo Faggioli, A ‘Leonine’ Version of Synodality? in Commonweal
• Harvard historian Jill Lepore's piece on the pope's encyclical in The New Yorker
• Our 5-part mini-series on changing belief

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