Pope Leo XIV Faces a Daunting Challenge, by Phil Lawler

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture, May 09, 2025

Phil Lawler has been a Catholic journalist for more than 30 years. He has edited several Catholic magazines and written eight books. Founder of Catholic World News, he is the news director and lead analyst at CatholicCulture.org.

At morning Mass yesterday (Thursday, that is), the priest mentioned that we are (were) a Church without a Pope, and we felt a certain something missing, something different.

Yes and No. For sure I was conscious that we were “missing” a Pope, and anxiously awaiting the result of the conclave that had just begun. But different? We were at Mass, as we had been the morning before, and the morning before that, and for months stretching back through years. The church was still open for business, the sacraments available, the lives of the faithful going on in their similar patterns. What was different, really?

Several generations ago, our Catholic forbears probably wouldn’t even have heard about a Pope’s death until after the new Pontiff was in place. Were their spiritual lives damaged by their ignorance? Of course not. No more than the lives of countless saints and martyrs over the centuries were less glorious because they never knew the name of the Roman Pontiff. The Church goes about its business—celebrating the Holy Sacrifice, offering prayers, preaching the Gospel, baptizing and absolving and ordaining and burying—even during the sede vacante period. …

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