«Do not follow those who use the words of faith to divide: organise yourselves instead to remove inequalities and to reconcile polarised and oppressed communities. Therefore, dear friends, let us listen to the voice of God within us and overcome our selfishness, becoming active artisans of peace. Then that peace, which is the gift of the Risen Lord, will become visible in the world through the shared witness of those who carry his Spirit in their hearts», Leo XIV said to young people.
In recent years, the terrain of gestures and symbols has become a battlefield. Not infrequently it has been used as an identity weapon: to recruit, to disqualify, to divide. The result is plain for all to see: a conflict that has caused real ecclesial damage, because it has cracked communion and turned what should unite into a reason for mutual suspicion.
This climate has been fuelled by choices and postures of governance, but also by the responsibility of those who, at a local level, have stoked confrontation: bishops who continue to do so, priests who place themselves among the ranks of the “combatants” rather than among those of the pastors. And yet, precisely here lies the point: that terrain cannot become divisive, because it is essential. Christian faith passes through concrete signs: gestures, mystery, silence, prayer. They are not accessories, they are not theatre, they are not a language for a few initiates. When signs are guarded with intelligence and lived with faith, they speak to the People of God and protect the unity of the Church. It is also in the light of this awareness that the line of Leo XIV must be read: to defuse polarisation and to restore to signs their highest task, that of serving ecclesial peace.
Eight months after the beginning of the pontificate, a series of gestures and choices - often dismissed as a “return to the past” or, on the contrary, celebrated in a caricatural way - deserve to be read for what they truly express: a coherent vision of the Church as a body that lives from unity, peace, and meaning.
Beyond the surface: when signs become ecclesial language
A person cannot be judged simply by appearances: this is the risk many have run over the last thirteen years. Too many were misled, at least until 2021, when a website was born that began to recount also what Francis did outside the frame, far from the camera angles and constructed narratives. A pontificate must be assessed in its words, in what it produces, in the way it acts. It cannot be reduced to exteriority, still less to liturgy alone. Liturgy, rather, offers a window through which to understand – at least on the visible plane – the relationship the Pope has with God. Seeing him celebrate, for example, is a testimony of faith: a concrete catechesis on how to celebrate, how to pray, how to stand before God.
The Pope has also clarified that the Church communicates not only through documents and decisions, but also through recognisable gestures, capable of educating without shouting. In his addresses to bishops and to those responsible for the Roman Curia, he has repeatedly recalled the need to recompose what has been shattered after years of polarisation, reminding them that “unity is not born of uniformity, but of recognising oneself within a shared tradition.”
Liturgy as a believed act
This is what Leo XIV, with his Augustinian spirituality, is bringing into the Church. In just a few months he has already carried out important reforms, cancelling ideological choices made in the past on the economic and financial level, while also making significant appointments, transfers, resuming certain customs and abandoning others. “The Pope is taking stock,” remarked a close clerical friend of his who serves in the Roman Curia. Among the most evident elements of these first months is the way Leo XIV celebrates Holy Mass. These have been particular years for all of Christianity. Francis had begun not to celebrate Holy Mass anymore, and not for reasons of health. When he stopped celebrating he was more than well. At times he concelebrated, at times he presided, at times he assisted. It was all a chaos that was difficult to understand. And even when he did celebrate, nothing of that mystery came across.
The sung celebration, the use of Latin, the choice of beautiful vestments – far removed both from ostentation and from that pauperism which at times became costly and ideological – return the liturgy to its proper register: the action of the Church that makes visible the mystery it celebrates. “Beauty is not a superfluous ornament, but a path that leads to the Mystery,” the Pope recalled in a recent homily.
Within the same horizon lies the resumption of the dalmatic under the chasuble, in accordance with liturgical norms. It is not a stylistic detail: it is a sign that removes the celebrant from the logic of personal display and instead points to the fullness of sacred order entrusted to him by the Church, within a liturgy that does not belong to the one who presides, but to the People of God.
Recovered traditions, recomposed continuity
In eight months, gestures and customs that had been set aside for years without any motivation have resurfaced. Midnight Mass on Christmas night has returned to 10 p.m., recovering the symbolic force of a liturgy truly placed at the heart of the night, and he has chosen to celebrate the Mass of Christmas Day. Likewise, the choice of a cassock made of an appropriate fabric, one that does not show what is worn underneath, and the attention to clothing – avoiding black, which creates an unpleasant visual break – are not details of vanity, but indicators of care. What is often presented as “simplicity” is, more plainly, carelessness. Sobriety does not coincide with shabbiness. A Franciscan friar can be essential and, at the same time, clean, orderly, composed. And here the point is almost elementary: trousers have to be bought anyway; choosing them in an appropriate colour does not cost more. It is a matter of measure and respect, not of luxury.
Leo XIV has resumed the use of the fascia with the embroidered coat of arms, of choir dress when circumstances require it, and, in the most institutionally significant moments, also of elements such as the pontifical throne. All of this must be read along the same line: not an aesthetics of power, but the clarity of roles and of the Church’s public language, which cannot be left to improvisation or to fashion.
A precise style of governance: those who divide are not within
In these months there has also been listening to those cardinals who have made themselves interpreters of “concerns for the Pope’s image,” going so far as to observe that the small hood on the mozzetta was “a bit too much”. A detail that no one outside notices, but which in certain pseudo-clerical environments is turned into a criterion of judgement, as if the substance of faith depended on a little cap. In reality, these are garments the Pope receives from tailors and wears without constructing any communication strategy around them: he assumes them as part of the public form of his ministry. Moreover, just like the fascia, they are signs that distinguish the Successor of Peter from other bishops. They have not “always existed” in an immutable way: in history they have gradually taken shape; for example, the custom of embroidering the coat of arms on the fascia is traced back to Pius XI. Today, however, they have the value of small indicators of institutional identity, and there is no serious reason why they should be set aside. On the contrary, one shows a lack of freedom when one fixates exclusively on lace, chasubles, crosses and accessories, reducing everything to an inventory of details and confusing faith with liturgical fetishism. And that, quite simply, is not faith.
Certain circles build a real profit around these signals – clicks, monetisation, narratives, and so on – turning them into the sole lens through which to judge a pontificate. This does not concern only traditionalist areas: there is also an opposite “front”, fuelled by daily polemics on social media, often more interested in refuting and humiliating than in understanding. In this climate are also found media and pseudo-academic networks that revolve around figures such as Austen Ivereigh and their respective reactionary camps. Leo XIV, however, has already made it clear that he does not intend to grant space to these dynamics. Ideological divisions are not a driver of reform, but a pathology that consumes energy and distorts the mission. For this reason, with a certain consistency, the Pope tends to marginalise those who build their ecclesial identity on permanent opposition, whatever banner they wave. The most concrete demonstration of this style of governance is found in the appointments: Prevost favours those who have always kept themselves clear of factions.
Governance, sobriety and realism
Prevost acts with freedom. He wears and uses what he deems appropriate, without allowing rival fan bases to dictate the agenda. One detail illustrates this well: during the Urbi et Orbi Blessing, the throne was placed on the Loggia – it had reappeared during the greetings to the Curia – and yet, addressing the world, he chose to remain standing, without making use of it. It is a simple but eloquent sign: form does not become ideology, and tradition does not become a pretext. In Leo XIV, signs return to being what they should be: instruments of communion, not ammunition for internal warfare. Leo XIV recalled this when speaking to the diplomats accredited to the Holy See: “institutions also speak through the forms that make them recognisable and trustworthy.”
Other decisions, less tied to liturgy and more to the ordinary life of the pontificate, reveal a concrete approach to the governance of the Church, far removed from ideological readings. The regular use of Castel Gandolfo for rest and sporting activity, participation in concerts and visits to exhibitions as cultural moments the Pope intends to experience personally, the forthcoming move to the Apostolic Palace, together with the choice of a car compliant with necessary security standards, outline a conception of the Petrine ministry that holds together sobriety and responsibility.
It is a line that rejects two extremes: on the one hand, the spectacularisation of poverty; on the other, the removal of the real demands a Pope must face, starting with the protection of his person and of the places in which he lives. In recent years, in fact, the expenses necessary to adapt vehicles presented as “poor” to high security requirements were concealed, as were the costs and organisational consequences linked to accommodation at Santa Marta, where the stable occupation of an entire floor affected not only security management but also ordinary operations and the structure’s revenue.
Peace and unity: the thread that holds everything together
Read as a whole, these gestures are not a catalogue of nostalgia, nor an identity banner. They are an attempt to stitch back together: between different sensibilities, between generations, between ecclesial languages that in recent years have regarded one another with suspicion. Leo XIV has repeated this several times: peace in the Church is not built by erasing signs, but by restoring their meaning; unity is not born of improvisation, but of a tradition inhabited with intelligence. Those who stop at excitement over a piece of lace or indignation over a throne miss the point. What is at stake here is not an aesthetic, but a vision: that of a Church capable of speaking to the present without amputating its memory, and of recognising in signs – when they are true – an instrument of communion and not of division.
fr.B.N.
Silere non possum