A spiritual and pastoral filiationIn his first speeches, Leo XIV never ceased to pay tribute to his predecessor, Pope Francis, whom he called "a father in the faith" and "a model of a universal pastor". Their relationship is not merely ceremonial: it reveals a genuine spiritual continuity, rooted in the same vision of the Church, turned towards the peripheries, mercy, simplicity of life and listening to the Spirit.Pope Francis has marked the contemporary history of the Church by his desire to desacralise the pontifical office, to open the Church to those wounded by life, and to place the poor back at the centre of the Gospel message. Leo XIV, while having his own style, takes up this breath: he does not seek to break with the past, but to deepen it, to extend it, to make it bear fruit.
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