Vatican City - A confidential briefing note, dated 16 June and accompanied by the detailed schedule of proceedings, has reached the members of the Sacred College in recent hours. It confirms the convocation of the Extraordinary Consistory, called by Leo XIV for 26 and 27 June 2026, and sets out its programme, method and - with an insistence that is hardly accidental - the requirements of confidentiality.
The document begins from a programmatic premise: since his election, the Pope has expressed his wish to draw upon “the wealth of experience and wisdom” of the College. The two days are therefore conceived not as a deliberative assembly, but as a time of fraternal exchange around some of the challenges that today confront the life and mission of the Church.
The four sessions
The proceedings are structured around four main moments, divided between the Paul VI Hall and the New Synod Hall.
Friday 26 June begins at 7.30 a.m. with Holy Mass in St Peter’s Basilica, presided over by Leo XIV himself. At 9.30 a.m., after the Veni Creator and the greeting of the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Giovanni Battista Re, the Holy Father’s introductory address will open the first session, dedicated to a shared meditation on the international situation: In what world are we called to proclaim the Gospel? In the afternoon, the second session - “The culture of power and the civilisation of love” - will take as its starting point chapter V of the encyclical Magnifica humanitas (nos. 182-192).
On Saturday 27 June, after Mass presided over by Cardinal Re, the third session (“Building in goodness: the worksites of our time”) will return to the encyclical, this time beginning from its Introduction and Conclusion. The fourth session, held in the afternoon in the New Synod Hall, is reserved for the update The path of implementation of the Synod, based on the document Towards the Synodal Assemblies 2027-2028. Stages, criteria and instruments for preparation. At 5.30 p.m. there will be an open dialogue with the Holy Father - contributions of no more than three minutes - followed by the Pope’s concluding address, the Te Deum and a dinner with the Pontiff in the Paul VI Hall.
The two days will lead into, on Monday 29 June, the Mass for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, with the customary morning gathering of the new metropolitan archbishops in the Chapel of Saint Sebastian.
The composition of the groups and the method
As in the January Consistory, the participants are divided into two sets: nine groups of “ordinary” cardinal electors, including the nuncios, and eleven groups of cardinals of the Roman Curia and non-elector cardinals. This division, the note explains, reflects the Pope’s wish to give particular space to the experience of the particular Churches and to listening to voices from the different regions of the world.
Each group has a president and a secretary, and works according to a three-stage methodology: personal interventions of no more than three minutes, a second round of “shared listening” lasting two minutes and without new proposals, and the collective drafting of a final report. The president is required to apply the time limits rigorously, “even at the risk of apparent discourtesy”. The reports are to be sent to a dedicated address, while a second contact point is provided for communications reserved solely to the Pontiff: mailboxes which the note describes as “strictly confidential”, enabled to receive messages only from the private addresses that each cardinal has personally communicated.
The insistence on confidentiality
The document is explicitly marked as confidential and closes with a clear recommendation: to maintain discretion regarding the proceedings and not to make statements to the press while the Consistory is under way, deferring any communication to the concluding press conference. The Fathers are also asked not to disclose the attribution of individual interventions.