TWENTY years ago, I faced the hard task of writing a Life of the new pope within a few months of his election. My challenge was softened by Benedict XVI’s puzzling profile. Besides being a conservative culture warrior, he had also published a self-serving memoir drawing a veil over the reformist views that he had voiced as a young priest. Poachers turned gamekeepers often form interesting subjects.
None of these factors applies to Pope Leo. On the contrary, his popularity at this year’s conclave probably owed much to a sphinx-like persona and general mildness. Detailed studies of him will naturally appear in due course. For now, though, there is little to go on.
That Christopher R. Altieri’s book fails in biographical terms is, therefore, forgivable. It is more of a cartoon sketch heavily framed by the author’s own sermonising than a proper portrait. The most eye-catching strand in Robert Francis Prevost’s story is the future Pontiff’s early move to Peru from his native Illinois. A book with a longer gestation would have told us much more about this formative period: unfortunately, it is skated over with disappointing haste. What we get instead is heavy padding about Vatican procedures and dilettantish commentary on how the Augustinian order to which Leo belongs is animated by the thought of St Augustine himself. A sharper editor would have excised much of this fluff. It often sounds pompous or patronising.
A longstanding Vatican correspondent, Altieri is partly rescued by his sub-title. His strengths lie in generally reliable discussion of church politics. To wit, Pope Francis was a disruptor without a coherent vision for reform who disappointed liberals as much as he antagonised conservatives. And, besides drawing praise across the spectrum for his outreach to the poor, campaigning on climate change, and compassion for migrants, Leo’s predecessor also displayed shockingly poor judgement on occasion, especially through permissive treatment of his fellow Jesuit Marko Rupnik, an alleged serial rapist. What’s more, Francis failed to defuse the time bomb represented by shaky Vatican finances.
The late Pope’s perceived flaws and strengths have already drawn extensive comment. Altieri encapsulates the situation accurately as follows: “The same thing as makes the Rupnik case a challenge, also gives Leo the opportunity to begin the reform of ecclesiastical justice in earnest, with a win for Responsibility, Accountability, Transparency . . .” But an answer to the core question shadowing this book – namely whether Leo has the skills to soften or solve these problems — remains elusive.
Rupert Shortt is a Fellow Commoner of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge. He was previously religion editor of the Times Literary Supplement.
Leo XIV: The new Pope and Catholic reform
Christopher R. Altieri
Bloomsbury £20
(978-1-3994-3089-0)
Church Times Bookshop £18