Habemus Papam: the most anticipated words after the white smoke appeared from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel on the second day of voting, on the fourth ballot. Leo XIV, Robert Francis Prevost, American Cardinal, and former Prefect of the Dicastery of Bishops, is the 267th Pope of the Catholic Church and Bishop of Rome. Unexpected and immediately welcomed by the faithful who came from all over the world, struck and moved by hearing his words of greeting to the entire community: «Peace be with you all! Dear brothers and sisters, this is the first greeting of the Risen Christ, the good shepherd who gave his life for the flock of God. I too would like this greeting of peace to enter your hearts, to reach your families, to all people, wherever they are, to all peoples, to the whole earth. Peace be with you! This is the peace of the Risen Christ, a disarmed peace and a disarming, humble and persevering peace. It comes from God, God who loves us all unconditionally."

A blessing, therefore, generously released by the Lodge of Blessings, full of content in its simplicity, and yet, and precisely for this reason, capable of reaching the hearts of all: "Peace be with you all!" Probably, in the light of such a greeting, it might not prove too useful to try to understand what imprint the Pontificate of Leo XIV will ever be able to confer on the Church, just as it might not seem very useful to try to understand if, and in what way, the Pontiff will be able, if he can, to influence international geopolitical balances. In the meantime, we know what is really important to know: he is a missionary belonging to the Order of the Augustinians, inspired by the concepts also dear to Pope Bergoglio, of poverty, preaching and fraternity. However, it would be a mistake, with good verisimilitude, to try, in any way and measure, to find some political direction in the next action of the Pontiff, especially by relying on reflections that would seem to want to see him as a pure and simple successor to Pope Francis, or as a Pontiff opposed to the administration of Donald Trump. If anything, it would perhaps be more constructive, to reflect on the role that the Church as a whole, by extension, has been able to exercise, and will be able to exercise in the near future, even involuntarily, in the political and social life of the last decades and starting from the period of, in particular, the Second Vatican Council, and in the near and future.

If we were to consider the impact on the real world of the last three papal experiences, from the papacy of the Polish Karol Wojtyla, John Paul II, which lasted from 1978 to 2005, to that of Joseph Ratzinger better known as Pope Benedict XVI, whose pontificate lasted from 19 April 2005 to 28 February 2013, to that of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis for all, whose pontificate began on 19 March 2013 and ended on the 21st day of the month of April 2025, then we could, as in fact we can, appreciate the circumstance that each of them would seem to have been chosen and chosen to interpret and guide, in various ways and measures, the very society of his time.

In this sense, the Pontificate of Karol Wojtyla has been appreciated for the significance it had in the context of the years of the crisis of the so-called communist bloc that would lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. These are the years, moreover, in which, in Italy itself, the political experience of the so-called "Pentapartito" was launched, a government coalition that lasted in our country from 1981 to 1991, formed by the fusion of the Christian Democracy, a centrist formation of the 1950s that also included the PLI, the PSDI and the PRI, with the so-called centre-left of the 1960s and 1970s composed of the PSI, PRI and PSDI. Different political and social experiences than the current ones, perhaps even more complex, but certainly the Vatican, the Church, and its highest expression, today embodied in the kind and authoritative figure of Pope Leo XIV, is still able to provide that support not only to the Italian and world population but also to all the greats of the world to be an unshakable pole of trust in a period of strong political uncertainty and bitter conflicts. Innovation in tradition: perhaps this is what is needed today.

Giuseppina Di Salvatore – Lawyer, Nuoro


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