In the present case, this may be particularly true, for an interesting reason: far more than his predecessor, Pope Leo seems willing to be a pope. With Pope Francis, it always felt rather ambiguous. In the obvious sense, he was, of course, the pope, but he often seemed uncomfortable with the role. His iconoclastic stunts excited some people, and were frequently cast as an embrace of Franciscan simplicity, but the papacy isn’t really a dress-down kind of gig. Over the long term, it was demoralizing. Pope Leo has been stepping back into a more traditional papal persona, and Catholics are loving it.
For the pope, symbolism matters. People want to know that they can trust him to lead the Church, and the symbols underscore that. So where Pope Francis refused to live in the Apostolic Palace, the pope’s traditional residence, Pope Leo is moving back.
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