Full immersion in Rome for a fortnight is a good, if bracing experience, for an Australian Catholic gal. This was my happy fate leading up to Pope Francis’ funeral and towards the election of Pope Leo XIV. Regrettably, I could not stay till the very end of the spectacle.
Spectacle it certainly was, but far more than that. Again, the sheer power of the Roman Catholic Church to capture symbolic attention world-wide, even in 2025, was on full display – surely not easily assumed during these messy days. What was it that proved so seductive? Tradition, absolute monarchy, the sublime beauty of the setting, developed characters, a Hollywood film helped, but also an underlying sense that despite the optics, something serious was being considered, something that mattered beyond the everyday. And that the existing systems would cope with that ambition.
Ultimately, that was incredibly reassuring for more than Catholics, I detect, when so many international systems right now feel brittle, or fragile, certainly not comfortable for the average citizen.
No, this system worked. However, over my time there I simply could not avoid drawing the conclusion that the lack of female participants was a major problem. The serried ranks of gorgeously kitted-out cardinals and bishops occupied their required place, the biggest number ever. Pope Francis’ insistence on the prominence of very humble people from his prison and disabled ministries was admirable too.
I think there were two women who read the epistles, thank goodness. And I’ll stand corrected, but I don’t recall seeing coverage, which must have been available, of the ubiquitous nuns of Rome, so undervalued to my eyes. Maybe I was too busy securing my broadcast spot amidst huge numbers of jostling international media (all a bit wild) so maybe I missed something.
But I couldn’t detect any big effort to emphasise the role of women in the Church, even if that required conscious, imaginative reconfiguring. By comparison, organisers of the Queen’s funeral and King’s coronation several months earlier, while drenched in similar tradition and ritual, seemed to have gone out of their way to insert women where they possibly could; e.g. Penny Mordaunt splendidly carrying the Sword of State throughout proceedings.
Francis notably named women to key posts in the Vatican, at the head of dicasteries (departments) and apparently Leo works well with several powerful women. Good signs for the future. But not enough.
'Leo will have to be determined. Will he be? He’ll have a great deal on his plate because the Church is not in great shape, despite the pageantry.'
Witness Cardinal Stella, a close co-worker with Francis, who had a startling, indignant outburst during the (allegedly confidential) pre-Conclave meetings about the late Pope’s propensity to appoint females and to, virtually, weaken the power of the clergy, in his view. By all accounts, this account did not go down well. Again, a good sign because otherwise it could have heralded the success of very active groups, especially from the United States, who wanted to reverse-course from Francis.
Instead, this new pope seems to be wedded to more, not less, conversation and interaction between the ordained and non-ordained. Symbolised by the unpoetic word of synodality, this process reached its apogee during a two year-process that finished in October 2024. Australian Catholics had earlier experienced a similar process called the Plenary Council in the previous two years. By all accounts, it wielded considerable influence on Vatican organisers.
But you’ll forgive me if I say, we’ll see. I’m certainly impressed with the whole demeanour of Leo XIV, I really am. Even though he was never more than a solid outsider (though firming in the books) among good judges I consulted, he now seems... perfect! He exudes a serenity, a man who accepted his fate as leader with visible poise. He’s a scholar yet also a man ‘who smells like the sheep’, to coin Francis’ immortal allusion to the ever-powerful analogy of the Good Shepherd. He knows leadership, having led his Augustinian order for 14 years and vitally, he knows the Vatican and its power structures, having been head of the important Dicastery for Bishops (spotting talent around the world and picking the new breed of bishops).
However, seeing the Vatican power structures up close – again all the males, reminding me of my earliest days in journalism – and the sheer comfortability of their interactions sans women, was striking. This is not an easy nut to crack in any setting, as many of us (male and female alike) do know, whatever the intention. It takes years to break open power habits and extraordinary commitment plus the law.
So Leo will have to be determined. Will he be? He’ll have a great deal on his plate because the Church is not in great shape, despite the pageantry. Of course, significant changes are already underway within believers’ private temperaments, moving at their own pace, as people in the pews are simply not prepared to abandon the Church to the existing officials, and their clearly limited talents, however well intentioned.
The ghastly sexual abuse crises scuttled that notion of leaving-it-to-the-bishops-and-the-Curia: do that and watch an institution crumble, is a deeply developed attitude in my view, even among those who’ve chosen to stick around and hope for viable meaning structures for their grandchildren. After all, lay-people have lived through other institutional failures and restructures and know the patterns in these volatile times.
Believers are starting to simply take matters into their own hands, equipping themselves through better knowledge of theology and tradition though only rarely being fully invited into co-responsibility, the by-word of the whole synodality process. Mind you, priests will confide that few lay-people necessarily want to take up regular responsibility for their parishes, satisfied to pay, pray and obey, more or less, like their forebears.
Plus, the Church’s venerable Canon Law systems are rocks-of-Gibraltar. They have not been drawn up and amended over the years with the aim of power-sharing, put it that way. Nobody who is interested in the Church’s health is unaware of this. Some fume at the lack of invitation to laity to help govern; others (including me) believe this will evolve due to sheer need to survive. Leo is also a Canon Law specialist, helpfully.
During my time in Rome, I became intrigued by Francis’ various decisions, especially to eschew the traditional Papal apartment as his home and to opt for the Santa Marta boarding-house instead, where he was known for being ‘ordinary’ – cleaning up his own plate, eating regularly with people, conversing constantly. I think this Argentinian man was absolutely determined not to be seduced by the attractions of Roman Catholic power.
For they are something to behold. I was granted an interview with the Vatican Foreign Minister Archbishop Paul Gallagher, who was Papal Nuncio to Australia about a decade ago and who governs a formidable group of other nuncios who are, effectively, Church diplomats with a proud tradition, in say Gaza, Syria and Ukraine.
His office, in the Apostolic Palace above the St Peter's Square colonnade, was so incredibly beautiful that it literally took my breath away, as I strode behind the Swiss Guard into the lead-up corridor. On a superb Roman spring day with the sun emphasising the gorgeous mosaic floor, I was stunned to witness the beautiful artwork on the walls – including a huge dual map of the whole 16th century world – the exquisite small sculptures on lovely walnut desks, the frescoes on the domed ceilings. Yes, I thought, I too might find this hard to overlook in favour of the sheep, but Leo did, with his Peruvian village work of course.
The Apostolic Palace, Vatican City. (Provided)
Francis, oddly, may have been a more solitary priest, even though a Jesuit. And he might have known himself well enough to grasp that this Roman grandeur could captivate, could derail the best ideals, could be the opposite of the ‘field hospital for the wounded of life’ that he wanted his ideal Church to be. It’s worth remembering Steve Bannon’s diametrically opposed comment, in recent times; ‘The Church is not meant to be therapeutic!’ He didn’t win this round of the battle thankfully.
We’ll see what Pope Leo chooses for himself. Already we know he has emphasised peace for all. He’s chosen the name Leo XIV, clearly invoking that big-thinking Pope Leo XIII, whose encyclical Rerum Novarum was such a bold intervention into the dramatic Industrial Revolutionary changes.
I hope he finds a way to emphasise hope, in various forms, as did Francis. Intriguingly 2025 is also the 75th anniversary of the Schumann Declaration, France’s then Minister for Foreign Affairs, who was utterly pre-occupied by avoiding another European war. He proposed to Germany that they manage their steel markets in a new supra-national way, the precursor to the EU.
As the Jesuit La Civiltà Cattolica points out (May 9) at the time amidst a widespread perception of ‘dead ends everywhere in Europe’, with a profound sense of countries and peoples being trapped into inevitable decline, and another war. So to strike out and think differently, to break through the entrenched pessimism, was a feat of hope, and practicality, fully naming all the interlocking challenges. Sounds like times we know?
The European project undoubtedly faces headwinds, but its very existence is the result of supreme feats of imagination and execution, surely. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had bought into this environment in his acutely stark way in the lead-up to the dreadful European conflagrations of the 20th century. Sasha Mudd, a philosopher who writes for Prospect magazine, is fascinated by his relevance as a diagnostician of our times too, applying it to the phenomenon of Donald Trump being an ‘opportunist who exploits a nihilist moment of moral despair and cultural disorientation’.
‘For Nietzsche, nihilism is the complex predicament a society finds itself in when it loses faith in its own values. It arises when dominant moral frameworks crumble – whether through the decline of religion, the aftermath of war or the failure of ideological projects. Its signature mood is one of anxiety, disorientation, despair and even rage, as people struggle to find meaning in a world where old certainties have collapsed.’ (Prospect, May 2025)
If ever a tradition of durable sure-footedness is needed, to cast the net into the deep without knowledge of its co-ordinates, it is surely now. There, in my view, must Leo stride, visibly, with confidence.
Geraldine Doogue AO is a renowned Australian journalist and broadcaster with experience in print, television and radio. She hosts Saturday Extra with ABC Radio National.