The diplomatic challenges facing Pope Leo

International diplomacy is not the pope’s primary role, but it is an inevitable part of the job.

In the first month of his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV has shown he is not afraid of bold diplomatic gestures.

Pope Leo XIV speaks at an audience June 11, 2025. Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Shortly after taking up his new role, he offered the Vatican as a location for peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, called for the release of journalists who are political prisoners around the world, and made appeals for peace between Israel and Palestine.

As Leo’s pontificate matures, he will encounter the opportunity - and indeed the imperative - to take decisive diplomatic stances.

Although international diplomacy is not the pope’s primary role, it is an inevitable part of the job.

Pope John Paul II famously helped avoid a war between Argentina and Chile and bolstered the transition towards democracy in Poland and other Eastern European countries, while Pope Francis had the Vatican negotiate the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba, and negotiate a peace deal between the Colombian government and FARC, the country’s largest guerrilla group.

Pope Leo starts his pontificate in a complex international scenario marked by war and persecution of the Church in different parts of the world — a “world war in parts,” as Pope Francis repeatedly said during his pontificate.

There are a number of delicate diplomatic situations facing Leo, each posing unique challenges and decisions to be made.

Ukraine

Although Pope Francis repeatedly advocated for peace in Ukraine, some of his statements and gestures were perceived as tone-deaf and were met with criticism from both parties in the war.

Francis said in September 2022 that the war was not a cowboy film where there are “good guys and bad guys,” which was widely interpreted as placing some of the blame for the Russian invasion on Ukraine and the West. In March 2024, he said that Ukraine should have the “courage to raise the white flag,” which angered Ukrainians.

However, he also said that Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church should not be “Putin’s altar boy” and repeatedly received Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy at the Vatican, which angered Russians.

With an approach that left both sides frustrated, the Vatican was not in a strong position to serve as potential mediator of a peace deal.

Pope Leo now has the chance to start from scratch and regain the confidence of both parties to mediate peace negotiations, and he seems to be working to that end.

The pope met with Zelenskyy after his inaugural Mass. He also had a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, something that did not happen under Francis after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Pope Leo has also offered the Vatican to host peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.

The coming months will tell whether he will choose to issue a stronger indictment of the Russian invasion and human rights abuses during the war, or if he will focus on becoming the primary mediator between the countries.

China

Since its inception in 2018, the Vatican-China agreement on appointing bishops has been marked by secrecy and controversy. The text of the deal remains secret to this day; Pope Leo XIV likely saw it in detail for the first time only in the early days of his pontificate.

Under Pope Francis, the deal was a flagship policy, aiming to unify China’s underground Church with the state-controlled Patriotic Association and ensure communion with Rome. But the deal has been widely criticized as falling short of those stated goals.

Only a handful of bishops have been appointed since the deal, with Beijing increasingly appointing bishops unilaterally, often without Rome’s prior knowledge. The Vatican has sometimes granted retroactive approval, while learning of some appointments through media reports.

And while the deal was hailed by its advocates as a way to lessen persecution, China has instead implemented new laws restricting Catholic worship—laws that local priests say enhance the possibility of persecution. Meanwhile, clergy, including bishops, who resist state control have been arrested or disappeared, with no progress on their release.

Although Pope Leo’s ability to reshape Vatican-Beijing relations is limited, he does have options.

Pope Leo could, in theory, abrogate the deal, although doing so could worsen conditions for Catholics in China, many of whom operate in a gray area between seeking communion with Rome and trying not to provoke civil authorities. An end to the deal could invite persecution and force clergy to choose sides, risking defections to Beijing.

Instead, Pope Leo might seek to revise the agreement ahead of its 2027 renewal, setting firmer Vatican terms, with a public clarification of the current situation and the Vatican's intentions. This could reset relations with Beijing and reassure Catholics in China that the pope is attentive to the Church’s situation in the country and of basic ecclesiological facts. Transparency, long lacking in the deal, could become a key asset in Leo’s diplomatic strategy.

Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba

A further complication of the Vatican-China deal is its potential to encourage other autocratic regimes to follow suit.

The Nicaraguan regime, for example, has already suggested it wants to follow a similar path.

In a January statement, the Nicaraguan regime claimed that “nothing authorizes the Vatican State, which must follow the rules of International Law and respect national governments and institutions, to make any kind of appointments in the sovereign territory of our Nicaragua.”

Many observers now suspect the government is preparing to demand the Vatican grant the regime approval over new episcopal appointments, in exchange for some lessening of government pressure on the local Church. If the Vatican were to decline such a demand, the regime could refuse to recognize the local hierarchy, and could continue to send its members into exile.

An increase in persecution last summer was believed to be a pressure campaign by the regime, to force exiled bishops to resign their sees in order to be replaced by bishops who were friendly to the government.

The situation in Venezuela is not as critical, as the Church operates with relative freedom.

However, there is a concordat in Venezuela that allows the government to veto episcopal appointments.

The Venezuelan regime has not used its veto power to get friendlier episcopal appointments, but it has used it to delay the appointment of critical bishops, even resulting in one bishop having to be appointed in a different diocese than originally expected to end an episcopal stalemate.

As a result of this veto power, episcopal appointments depend solely on the goodwill of the Venezuelan regime. Thus, if the Church becomes an uncomfortable foe of the regime too openly, the situation might get complicated very quickly.

While Cuba has no concordat, and the Church in the country probably enjoys its greatest level of freedom since the Cuban revolution in the ‘60s, there are still tensions in the country. Many priests who have been too critical of the country’s communist government have been threatened by the regime or forced into exile.

Engaging with dictatorships is always a delicate balancing act. Maintaining too close a relationship with the regime could give the appearance of sympathy, or even complicity. But speaking out too boldly could result in persecution for the local Church in retribution.

The Vatican under Francis largely remained silent about the persecution against the Church and human rights violations in these countries, with only sparing statements about them that increased in the last few years of his pontificate.

Pope Leo will need to weigh the value of gaining some goodwill from these regimes - and perhaps marginal gains for the local Church - against the value of being a prophetic voice against the persecution of the Church and human rights abuses.

Donald Trump

It is no secret that there was no love lost between Pope Francis and U.S. President Donald Trump.

In January 2025, Francis appointed Cardinal Robert McElroy as Archbishop of Washington, with sources telling The Pillar the appointment was in response to Trump’s nomination of Catholic Vote president Brian Burch as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See.

McElroy is considered one of Trump’s most strident ecclesiastical critics, especially on immigration and the environment.

In February, Francis sent a letter to the U.S. bishops, criticizing Trump’s migration policy, in which he said that “the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation… places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.”

If his now-defunct personal twitter.com account serves as a proof, it seems that Pope Leo is at least privately aligned with Francis’ view on the matter.

Nevertheless, it remains to be seen if he might prefer a more constructive approach towards the United States in general, and President Trump more specifically.

While it seems certain that there are many points of disagreement and tension between the United States and the Vatican, there’s potential for cooperation in areas such as gender ideology, religious freedom, and peace in Ukraine and the Holy Land.

Pope Leo has already made it clear that unity is a priority for him. And in the early days of his pontificate, he has demonstrated a calculated approach and measured tone. It is possible that he may approach the U.S. government with caution and diplomacy, seeking to reduce tensions rather than inflame them.

Israel and Palestine

While Pope Francis was a persistent advocate for peace in the Middle East and repeatedly called for both a ceasefire in Gaza and a return of the Israeli hostages, some of his statements also brought tension to Israel-Vatican relations.

In his Dec. 21 address to the Roman curia, the pope said the deaths of children amid bombings were “cruelty,” which many in Israel interpreted as the pope saying that the Israeli military was deliberately targeting children.

On Christmas Eve, Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar summoned the apostolic nuncio to Israel, Archbishop Adolfo Tito Yllana, to express his “strong displeasure” at the pope’s remarks.

And although Francis strongly condemned the global surge in antisemitism in his ‘state of the world’ address in early January, many observers have suggested that the Vatican’s current relationship with the Jewish community is at one of its lowest points since the Second Vatican Council.

Here as well, however, Pope Leo has a chance to reset the tone of the relationship as he begins his pontificate.

Leo has continued Francis’ calls for peace and for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. He has also called Israel to allow the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, as well as for the release of Israeli hostages.

In this way, his early public stances have been in continuity with Francis.

But he will need to avoid incendiary statements and blunders such as installing a keffiyeh in the Vatican nativity scene if he wants to lower the tension with Israel, while still being perceived as a powerful mediator by Palestine.

In fact, the pope might decide to take a more subsidiary position, continuing his general appeals for peace and for a ceasefire, while allowing Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, to be the leading voice of the Church in the conflict, a position that the Italian cardinal seems to embrace comfortably.

How Vatican diplomacy addresses this challenge will be another story to watch this year.