JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
This Sunday, Pope Leo XIV will celebrate his first Easter in Rome as pope. He is also approaching the one-year anniversary of his election last May to lead the Catholic Church and its 1.5 billion members. Joining me now to talk about Pope Leo's plans for Easter as well as the big themes of his first year as pope is Claire Giangrave, the Vatican correspondent for our partner organization Religion News Service. Hi there.
CLAIRE GIANGRAVE: Hi.
SUMMERS: Claire, Holy Week services are well underway in Rome. Is Leo doing anything differently this year?
GIANGRAVE: Well, yes, in many ways, Leo is signaling a return to Catholic tradition. On Maundy Thursday - that's a ceremony where Christians recall when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples - Pope Francis, his predecessor, would usually wash the feet of marginalized people, like immigrants and prisoners. It was really his way of drawing attention to people that he thought were often ignored by the rest of society. But Leo, on the other hand, did what Pope Benedict XVI and other popes had done before him, which is he washed the feet of 12 Roman priests at the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome on Thursday.
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GIANGRAVE: Now, Leo did do something that we haven't seen in a very long time. On Good Friday - that's today - he carried the cross himself to the 14 Stations of the Cross at Rome's Colosseum. And this decision that we really haven't seen any other pope do really showcases how young and physically active this 70-year-old pope actually is.
SUMMERS: As we mentioned, we're now coming up on the one-year anniversary of Pope Leo's election. I know you've been covering him in Rome. Walk us through some of the most important moments of his first year.
GIANGRAVE: Well, everyone I have spoken to at the Vatican told me that even before becoming pope, Leo was a true listener, someone who likes to gather all the information before making any big decision. And that's really what we saw in the first months of his papacy. He gathered information, and he continued the unfinished work of his predecessor, Pope Francis. What I've learned so far about this pope is that he's not a pope of big pronouncements and gestures like Francis. He has his own style, and we're still learning about it a little bit.
We've seen Leo himself engage more directly on the global stage. Recently, he stated that God does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, which was interpreted largely as a direct rebuke to U.S. and Israeli rhetoric, which employed religious imagery to justify the war in Iran. But even with those kinds of comments, what Leo is really emerging as is a collaborator and a delegator. And we've seen this, for example, in how he's let Vatican diplomats take the lead in trying to defuse tense situations in Venezuela, Cuba and even in Jerusalem.
SUMMERS: Leo is about to enter a busy period in his papacy. What's ahead for him in the coming weeks?
GIANGRAVE: Well, we expect Leo to issue a major statement on artificial intelligence in the coming weeks. He signaled that this was coming almost immediately after he was elected, and that happened when he explained why he chose the name Leo. Leo XIII had issued a major document on economics and social justice in 1891, and we believe that Leo XIV is going to draw and build upon that document.
And then later in April, Leo will travel to four countries in Africa. He will go to Algeria, Angola, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. Some of these countries are home to severe economic and environmental exploitation, and it will be really interesting to see if the pope is going to use this opportunity to openly criticize the foreign and local parties that are taking advantage of these countries, or he will continue this more quiet and sort of behind-the-scenes diplomacy.
SUMMERS: Claire Giangrave is the Vatican correspondent for Religion News Service. Thanks so much.
GIANGRAVE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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