Eyes were focused on that chimney at the Vatican for a considerable time during the past week. The election of the successor of Pope Francis has a relevance extending beyond religion and religious views. Pope Francis initiated rapid change at the Vatican, at an unaccustomed pace. Too fast for the Vatican but, maybe, not so fast by standards of the outside world.

He was by all standards a radical pope. It is too early to establish whether his successor will keep to his path or else whether the new papacy will be a diluted version of the Bergoglio papacy.

Undoubtedly the 12-year service of Pope Francis is characterised by his placing the poor and the vulnerable at the centre of his papacy.

Writing this opinion a few minutes after the first public address of Leo XIV, the new Pope, it is too soon to identify how he will plot the way forward. He is the first American Pope, hailing from Chicago, already being described by the media as the least American of the Americans. Probably on account of his long period in the service of the Church in Peru and his known moderate non-conservative views.

He is on record as being a staunch defender of immigrants and has recently publicly chastised US Vice-President J.D. Vance. MAGA exponents are already scratching their heads commenting that possibly he is "worse than Francis". 

In his first address Leo XIV has spoken very forcefully on peace (a disarming and disarmed peace) and on the need to build bridges.

Hailing from a religious order, the Augustinians, it was natural for Pope Prevost to refer to synodality, even though fleetingly, in his first address. This being an important unfinished business of Pope Francis, entrusted to Cardinal Mario Grech as Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops. Synodality being a sort of decentralisation of the Church's decision-taking. It could eventually lead to substantial changes including greater participation of layman and women in decision-taking, not just in Rome but at the grassroots, in dioceses and parishes too.

The Church has yet to realise that it cannot keep ignoring women and exclude them from actively participating at par with men. It is an area in which the Bergoglio pontificate did not cover any appreciable ground.

In this respect it was pointed out to me that Pope Robert Francis Prevost, in his role as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishop,s was responsible for the nomination of three women to serve as members of the Vatican office that vets the nominations of bishops. Revolutionary by Vatican standards, even though it may seem quite insignificant to the rest of us.

The in-tray of Leo XIV has undoubtedly a substantial number of issues which Pope Francis was dealing with but which still require more decisive action. Possibly cases of clerical sexual abuse top the list, even as from time to time identified by the Vatican peripatetic investigator, Malta's part-time archbishop, Charles J. Scicluna.

There are even, as always, issues relative to the management of the Church finances, not least the fraud cases in which one of the cardinals, the Sardinian Giovanni Angelo Becciu, was found guilty by the Vatican Criminal Court. A decision currently still subject to appeal.

Back to Malta, maybe, when Archbishop Scicluna can find some time to oversee the manner in which the local Church's investments are being administered he would be in a position to explain the APS mess in handling a potential take-over of the local HSBC. His Grace was definitely not inspired by what is required to achieve a Church of and for the poor when he permitted the APS plan to take-over HSBC to proceed.

It is public knowledge that there was considerable internal resistance to the APS move within Church structures. It is definitely not the role of the Church to take charge of the second largest bank in the economy, through its controlling shareholding of APS. Fortunately, the whole matter has now been reconsidered. Maybe His Grace has finally realised that he had departed considerably from Pope Bergoglio's roadmap. It is never too late. Maybe APS will now find the time to focus on its core mission: ethical banking.

It will definitely not be easy for Leo XIV after Bergoglio's radical papacy. In his choice of name, however, he has already indicated his programme, one that is keen on the development of the social teaching which his namesake, the last Leo, many years ago pioneered. A commitment to social justice and to a Church of and for the poor and the vulnerable. It is also encouraging that he is determined to be a bridge builder, that is a seeker of consensus, a welcome relief in a world which continuously builds walls which entrench division and hatred. In this sense Leo XIV will, in his own way, reach out to all, on the footsteps of his predecessor.

An architect and civil engineer, the author is a former Chairperson of ADPD-The Green Party in Malta.  [email protected] ,   http://carmelcacopardo.wordpress.com