300 days into his papacy, Pope Leo is being described by one longtime Catholic social justice scholar as a man who understands that faith must be lived in the world, not sealed off from it.
That assessment comes from Bruce Duncan, a Redemptorist priest and longtime scholar of Catholic social teaching, who taught for 35 years at Yarra Theological Union and founded Social Policy Connections, an ecumenical social justice outreach.
In a podcast interview with Fr Mans Bolli, Bruce said Pope Leo’s rise was no accident and that his first months have confirmed what many close observers had long suspected.
“What we need to think about here is it’s not an accident that he’s pope,” Bruce said. “Pope Francis was really singling him out.”
He said Pope Leo’s early papacy shows a man formed by global experience and shaped by the same moral currents that animated Francis.
So How is he Going?
“He’s going very well I think,” Bruce said.
That judgment rests not just on style but on substance. Bruce said Leo is “following closely in Francis’ footsteps,” especially on synodality and social justice.
To Bruce, those are not optional concerns.
“Social concern and social justice is not an added extra,” he said. “It’s at the heart of the faith.”
Again and again, he returned to the divide between those who see religion mainly as devotion and those who insist devotion without public consequence misses the Gospel’s core.
“What do I mean by that,” he said, “not to see religion just as a ritual thing of piety alone.”
Leaving no room for ambiguity, he went on to say: “If you haven’t got this commitment to the poor, if you don’t take it seriously, you haven’t really got faith. You’ve got faith in something, but it’s not the God of Jesus.”
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That is why, in his reading, Pope Leo’s choice of name matters. He linked this decision to Leo XIII, whom he called “a great reforming pope who steered the church into really engaging with the big industrial issues,” including “workers’ rights,” “the rights to property,” and “social equity.”
To him, the newest Pope Leo is placing himself in that lineage while extending Francis’ concerns into the present. This continuity matters, especially as Francis’ legacy and reforms have become so contested.
“There had been a lot of opposition rising against the direction Pope Francis was taking the church,” Bruce said. “People thought he was too outspoken.”
Yet Leo’s task, he suggested, is not retreat but consolidation.
“He’s saying, ‘No, no, this is Vatican Two part two,’” Bruce said.
If you haven’t got this commitment to the poor, if you don’t take it seriously, you haven’t really got faith. You’ve got faith in something, but it’s not the God of Jesus.
— Bruce Duncan CSsR
Hope in Dark Times
Asked about Pope Leo’s greatest challenge, Bruce widened the lens beyond church politics.
“Now the greatest challenge for Pope Leo is to get the church into a position where it can help humanity at this vital stage avoid catastrophic outcomes of climate change or world war or other disasters which are threatening,” he said.
He spoke of hunger, water insecurity and the moral responsibility to shape public life.
“We have to speak about the moral values on which your economic system is based,” he said.
Hope for the next 300 days, and beyond
Bruce was not despairing, but hopeful. Asked what he wanted from Pope Leo, his answer was simple: “Like Pope Francis keep going, keep going the way you are.”
That meant keeping diplomacy alive and speaking, as he put it, not only in a Catholic voice but in “a small c universal voice that appeals to human values.”
In the end, that was his reading of both Francis and Leo. The church, at its best, does not stand apart from the suffering of the world.
Written by: Matthew Howard, Executive Producer of Common Home Tv.
