Pope Leo, Ecclesial Umpire: How the American Pontiff Sees His Role

ANALYSIS: In his first interview as pope, Leo XIV cast himself as the Church's chief referee -- an impartial umpire in both ecclesial disputes and global conflicts, guided above all by the Gospel.

Baseball fans know a good umpire isn't the star of the show. He's there to make sure everyone gets a fair swing of the bat, call baserunners "out" or "safe," and correctly interpret the rules to ensure the game's integrity is preserved.

In his first interview as pope, Leo XIV made clear that he sees his own role in a similar vein.

With both the Catholic Church and the world riven by deep division and seemingly zero-sum conflicts, the U.S.-born Pontiff sees his job as being in the middle of all the action. Not to solve every problem or to advance his personal preferences, but instead to listen widely, promote unity and, above all else, to proclaim the Gospel.

This thread was a running theme throughout the Holy Father's just-published, exclusive interview with Elise Allen of Crux. During the wide-ranging conversation, which was conducted in two July sessions while Pope Leo vacationed at Castel Gandolfo, the Pope approached topics ranging from peace talks in Ukraine and engaging with Donald Trump to women's role in the Church and access to the traditional Latin Mass with an emphasis on dialogue and communion -- and a warning of the dangers of division and ideology.

"We live in times when polarization seems to be one of the words of the day, but it's not helping anybody," he said.

In response, Pope Leo sees his role as less of a provocateur and more of an umpire or referee of the Church's disputes, rather than an impassioned participant in them. He suggested that on hot-button issues, his job is less to push for changes than it is to ensure unity.

This quieter, more restrained approach to the papacy was championed by many in the lead-up to the conclave that elected Leo. Bishop Robert Barron, for instance, spoke approvingly of St. John Henry Newman's understanding of the pope as an "adjudicator of disputes" rather than the main "player" in the Church's life.

Leo seems to be taking this tack, presenting a somewhat different style than his predecessor. Whereas Pope Francis sought to shake things up, Leo seems more concerned with settling things down. He is clearly aware of the polarized state of the Church he inherited, and it came through in how he articulated his role as pontiff.

For instance, Leo did mention carrying forward Francis' "prophetic vision for the Church," including synodal reform, yet he placed greater emphasis on his responsibility to "confirm others in the faith," calling it "the most fundamental role that the Successor of Peter has."

Every referee relies on a rule book, and Pope Leo consistently pointed to no other guide in his governance of the Church and engagement in world affairs than the Gospel.

"I don't feel the need to complicate my role because my role is announcing the Good News, preaching the Gospel," he told Allen, adding that his job isn't to solve the world's problems but to "loudly" share the Church's message. He referenced a recent surge in adult baptisms in secularized France as an indication that many are still desperate to hear the saving Good News of Jesus Christ.

Pope Leo's emphasis on impartially proclaiming the Gospel is likely to be music to the ears of Church figures like Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In a Sept. 16 interview with OSV News, the head of the pan-African episcopal symposium stressed that "the pope is not there to create doubt, but to confirm the fundamental articles of our Catholic faith."

Cardinal Ambongo likely had in mind Fiducia Supplicans, a 2023 declaration approved by Pope Francis that allowed for blessings of persons in same-sex unions. The Congolese cardinal said the document caused major confusion throughout the world and was published without consultation, calling it a "bad chapter" of the Francis pontificate.

Cardinal Robert Sarah, another influential African prelate, told an Italian Catholic newspaper last week that Fiducia Supplicans should be "forgotten" under the new pontificate.

During his own interview, Pope Leo XIV didn't go that far, although he did call out Catholic bishops in Germany and Belgium for defying the document by publishing ritual blessings for same-sex couples.

But Pope Leo did indicate that Catholics shouldn't expect any further "shake-ups" regarding sexuality under his watch because he is "trying not to continue to polarize or promote polarization in the Church."

Instead, he underscored the need to reemphasize the importance of marriage and the "traditional family" and even speculated that current levels of polarization in society might be the product of the breakdown of family life. He also expressed concerns that the West is fixated on sexuality, which can obscure one's true identity.

"Everyone's invited in [the Church], but I don't invite a person in because they are or are not of any specific identity," he said. "I invite a person in because they are a son or daughter of God."

Regarding the possibility of women's ordination, Leo indicated both an openness to listening to different viewpoints but also the unlikelihood of anything fundamentally changing.

On access to the traditional Latin Mass (TLM), which Pope Francis severely restricted, Pope Leo agreed with his predecessor that the ancient liturgy can be used as "a political tool" by some. But he also acknowledged that people's attraction to the TLM likely flows from abuses of the Vatican II liturgy, which were "not helpful" to those seeking reverence in their worship.

In the end, he described TLM access as an issue that "we have to sit down and talk about," confirming that he'll give proponents of the TLM a hearing, even as he isn't sure where the conversation "is going to go."

Pope Leo XIV's balanced approach to hot-button issues appears to be something that can be traced back to his upbringing, involving, of all things, sports. While it's true that he grew up a White Sox fan on Chicago's South Side, the Pontiff confirmed that his mother actually cheered for the Cubs, so he "couldn't be one of those fans that shut out the other side."

"We learned, even in sports, to have an open, dialogical, friendly and not angry competitive stance on things like that, because we might not have gotten dinner had we been!" the Pope remarked. In another indication of the impartiality that he sees as necessary for him in his new office, he added that "Robert Prevost was a White Sox fan, but as pope, I'm a fan of all teams."

Pope Leo gave another sign of how his personal disposition might lend itself to his style of governance, discussing his approach to public events as pontiff.

"I appreciate everyone, whoever they are, what they come with, and I listen to them," he said. "This makes some of the greeting lines last longer because people like to talk and that you engage with them."

Leo seems to bring the same deliberative and widely consultative approach to Church governance, suggesting no quick outcomes or rash decisions to the many ongoing disputes. In fact, Leo believes that dialogue is the primary way to "build bridges" between different points of view.

It was in this context that Leo spoke of synodality. The former prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, who participated in both the 2023 and 2024 sessions of the Synod on Synodality, said that synodality isn't aimed at transforming the Church "into some kind of democratic government," but is instead "a willingness to understand."

"It's an attitude which I think can teach a lot to the world today," he said, describing synodality as an "antidote" to polarization.

Pope Leo's more restrained understanding of the papacy even extends to how he sees his role in interacting with President Donald Trump. Although Pope Leo made clear that he has serious concerns about some of the Trump administration's policies, especially regarding immigration enforcement, he indicated that he won't be taking the more conflictual, toe-to-toe approach with Trump that Francis often did. Instead, Leo intends to engage in American politics and society by working through the country's bishops.

"I don't plan to get involved in partisan politics," he said. "That's not what the Church is about. But I'm not afraid to raise issues that I think are real Gospel issues, that hopefully people on both sides of the aisle, as we say, will be able to listen to."

The Pope's balanced discussion of various controversies seemed to confirm previous analysis by longtime Vatican reporter John Allen, Elise Allen's husband and the founder of Crux, that Leo's emphasis on unity over the first few months of his papacy isn't just a warm-up act.

"Maybe we should get used to the idea that what we've already seen is what we're going to get -- a gentle, pastoral shepherd, for whom community is a far higher ideal than confrontation," wrote Allen in a Sept. 7 piece, well after Pope Leo's exclusive interview with Crux had been conducted.

And yet, Pope Leo's emphasis on hearing from all sides is likely to ruffle some feathers, on topics both ecclesial and geopolitical.

For instance, regarding the war between Russia and Ukraine, the Pontiff spoke of the Holy See's efforts to remain "truly neutral" and said that "on any side of any position, you can find motivations that are good and motivations that are not so good." Ukraine's leaders and those who see Russia as an unjust aggressor are likely to take issue with the Pope's words.

Others might take issue with the way Pope Leo seemed to shut down discussion of changing Church teaching related to sexuality. The Holy Father couched the topic in terms of avoiding polarization, rather than in language reiterating the perennial and unchangeable truth of the Church's teaching on marriage and sexual morality.

A more fundamental question is whether the pope's responsibility to "confirm others in their faith" means remaining in the middle of any given ecclesial dispute. St. John Henry Newman, who Pope Leo will formally name a doctor of the Church, seemed not to think so. Based on his observation that the middle position in some Christological disputes in the early Church was sometimes found to be heretical, the English convert once wrote that "the truth often lies, not in the mean, but in the extreme."

Some who are concerned that Francis' pontificate seemed to move the goalposts on a variety of doctrinal topics might want Leo to eschew maintaining the status quo in favor of what they see as a return to orthodoxy.

But, of course, at times, Leo did avoid the kind of "false neutrality" that sees both sides of a conflict as necessarily equal. For instance, when discussing AI and its potential impact on society, his concerns were primarily on how widespread automation would affect the working class. And when discussing Israel's military campaign in Gaza, he brought up the fact that some are describing the situation as a genocide, even as he stopped short of applying that label himself.

Leo certainly prioritized balance and impartiality in his remarks. But above any sense of neutrality, it was the Gospel that he constantly referred to as the ultimate criteria for how he intends to lead the Catholic Church. He also called for Catholics to not use the Gospel ideologically, but to "re-understand the authentic message that's there."

Perhaps the best way to put it is that Leo sees the Gospel itself as a source of unity -- the only unity that can ultimately overcome the current malaise of division and polarization. And the American-native Pontiff seems to trust that by calling "balls" and "strikes" according to the teachings of Jesus Christ and his Church, good things will follow.