The One Thing Pope Leo XIV Wants to Change This Christmas

The change Leo wants most this season can’t be voted on, outsourced, or delegated.

Dear friends —

It’s the night before Christmas Eve. Most of the world is trying to get home, wrap gifts, and hold together whatever peace it can manage.

I’m writing you late — not to add noise, but because I can’t sleep, and I don’t want to miss the moment to tell you something on my mind and heart.

As I’ve studied Pope Leo XIV this year — his homilies, his instincts, his warnings, his hopes — I’ve come to a certain conclusion:

The #1 thing Pope Leo wants to change about the Church is us.

Not the paperwork. Not the press strategy. Not the seating chart of Rome.

Us.

In what I’ve come to think of as the Magna Carta homily of his pontificate, Leo said it plainly:

“No one is called to dominate; all are called to serve.”

Everything else flows from that line.

He is pleading with the Church to abandon the logic of power and recover the logic of love.

To become a people who listen rather than impose, accompany rather than control, walk together rather than build fiefdoms inside the Body of Christ.

To expose our favorite religious temptation, Leo turned to the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee turns faith into a mirror — obsessed with his own righteousness. The tax collector knows he needs mercy.

Leo’s warning is bracing in its simplicity: When ego wins, the community becomes judgmental and exclusionary. When humility wins, grace has room to move.

This is the revolution Leo is after — not an ideological coup, but an interior conversion. Not unity by uniformity, but unity rooted in shared dignity.

“We must dream of and build a more humble Church,” he urged. Not a self-exalting Church like the Pharisee in the parable, “triumphant and inflated with pride,” but one that “bends down to wash the feet of humanity.”

The pope continued, we need “a Church that does not judge [others]... but becomes a welcoming place for all; a Church that does not close in on itself, but remains attentive to God so that it can similarly listen to everyone.”

In other words, a Church with open arms and open ears — firmly grounded in God’s truth, yet never deaf to the voices of his children, however poor or hurting.

Finally, Pope Leo explicitly linked this humble interior renewal to the Church’s outward mission.

If we become a Church “attracted to Christ,” he said, we will by definition be “committed to serving the world.”

If that sounds soft, it isn’t. It’s the hardest thing on earth.

And it’s why I write Letters from Leo.

I don’t write this newsletter just to chronicle the pope’s actions, but to rally all of us to recognize what’s happening — and to take part in it.

In my own small way, I’m trying to walk with Pope Leo on this road: to help redeem the highest values of our Church and our nation, and to bring the light of faith and conscience into a public square that too often rewards cruelty, vanity, and lies.

I’ve started thinking of this work as a kind of secular priesthood — a calling to carry Christ’s love into public life, even in imperfect ways.

I’ll be the first to admit it: I’m not the perfect messenger. Writing about faith in the brutal arena of American politics is uncomfortable—and, at times, exposing.

For one, I’m a sinner in need of God’s mercy. But, too, I’m writing from a place of skepticism: I know I don’t have all, most, or even many of the answers — political or otherwise — for how to make our nation and world more just, more humane, and less cold.

But I keep going because I believe what Pope Leo is doing has the power to change our world for the better, and that happens by more and more people knowing him and his story.

As Blessed John Paul I once said: “I offer you the little that I have and am.”

That’s what I’m offering here — my back, my mind, my heart, and my love for this Church and this country: both of them blessed, both of them broken.

And here’s the bottom line: Letters from Leo is 100% reader-supported.

No corporate backing. No institutional sponsor. No billionaire benefactor waiting in the wings.

Just you — this growing community — choosing to keep this work alive.

So tonight, on the threshold of Christmas, if this publication has added value to your life (or the life of someone you love), I’m humbly asking for your support.

Here are three concrete ways to help this holiday season:

• Subscribe as a paid member to receive exclusive posts about the life and formation of Pope Leo and help sustain this newsletter.

• Donate with a one-time gift to fuel this project’s mission.

• Share this post (and Letters from Leo) with a friend who might enjoy it.

Whether you give $0, $1, or $1,000, your presence here matters — no matter your faith, your doubts, or your politics.

And more than anything, I ask for your prayers: for me, for this project, and for Pope Leo as he takes on the role of the prophet of peace and justice in the age of darkness and corruption.

My friends — we’re only beginning. The road ahead is long, but we don’t walk it alone.

Let us rise, then, fellow travelers, and continue on our way.

PS — If you’d like to make a larger gift through a credit card, check, family foundation, or donor-advised fund, reply to this email. We’ll gladly help you invest in this mission.