Leo XIV’s Christocentric View: July 6, 2025

In recent comments to Italy’s Bishops, Pope Leo XIV affirmed his Christ-centered (Christocentric) view of the Church in the world. This follows the theme of Pope Francis’ 2013 Apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium, “helping people live a personal relationship with the Lord, so they may discover the joy of the Gospel.” Pope Leo strongly reinforced the foundation of all Catholic Social Teaching (CST): the primacy of the dignity of the human person through our relationship with Christ.

Everything starts and ends with what “the Incarnation teaches man about man” (Pope John Paul II). We are made in the image and likeliness of God! Pope Leo expanded on this: “The person is not a system of algorithms: he or she is a creature, a relationship, a mystery.” Thus, “without a living reflection on the human being—in his or her corporeality, vulnerability, thirst for the infinite, and capacity for relationships, ethics is reduced to a code, and faith risks becoming disembodied.”

Each age struggles with rejection of this truth. Pope Leo notes today’s challenges to human dignity: artificial intelligence, biotechnologies, the data economy, and social media. Through these Leo warns “the dignity of the human being risks being flattened or forgotten, replaced by functions, automatisms, simulations.” His answer to this is for the Church to redouble its efforts with new catechesis and return “to the foundations of our faith, to the kerygma” – the saving story of Christ!

We should “bring Christ ‘into the veins’ of humanity, by renewing and sharing the apostolic mission. No one can stop you from proclaiming the Gospel—and it is the Gospel that we are sent to bring, because this is what everyone—ourselves first of all—needs in order to live well and to be happy. No one can prevent you from being close to the people, from sharing life, from walking with the least, from serving the poor.” (adapted from Vatican New Media, 17 JUNE)