Pope Leo’s Five Biggest Challenges

As he steps into one of the most influential roles in the world, many challenges lie ahead for the newly elected Pope Leo XIV.

Cardinal Robert Prevost, a Chicago-born missionary who spent his career ministering in Peru before taking over the Vatican’s powerful office of bishops, was on Thursday elected the first pope from the United States in the Catholic Church’s 2,000-year history.

He expressed a desire to bridge divides in his first address from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica on Thursday evening, delivered in Italian and Spanish. “Peace be with you all,” he said. “We want to be a synodal church, walking and always seeking peace, charity, closeness, especially to those who are suffering.”

From bridging divides between warring factions of the church, the Vatican’s financial crisis and the legacy of sexual abuse scandals, there will be plenty of urgent issues for the new leader of the Catholic Church to address.

‘A Global Statesman’

Pope Leo ascends to the papacy at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions, when Russia is continuing its war in Ukraine and Israel has renewed its offensive in Gaza after a temporary ceasefire. His predecessor, Pope Francis, was unafraid to comment on divisive political issues—and many will look to the pope to do the same.

“His greeting to those gathered in St Peter’s Square and those watching globally, ‘peace be with you’, has set the tone for his papacy,” Maria Power, a Catholic and senior research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Las Casas Institute for Social Justice in the U.K., told Newsweek.

“Over the past 50 years, the pope’s role as a global statesman has been emphasized, and he is seen as a neutral figure who has the moral authority required to navigate global political tensions.”

His first tasks, she said, will be “to turn his attention to Israel/Palestine and Ukraine, sending Vatican diplomats to engage in shuttle diplomacy while keeping the world’s attention focused on places where the dignity of the human person is being violated daily.”

Healing a Divided Church

The church is recent years has been sharply divided between conservatives and progressives.

Conservative Catholics in the U.S. were particularly critical of Francis, but Pope Leo is viewed as a moderate who could strengthen unity.

Pope Leo is “an inspired choice” to deal with the divisions, Power said. “He is a centrist who has vast missionary experience and will therefore understand the global church. He will have to walk a fine line between the factions of the church, but there are elements of his ministry and priesthood that will appeal to both sides,” she added.

Clerical Abuse Scandals

The new pope will have to continue dealing with the sex abuse scandals that have dogged the church for decades.

Pope Leo faced scrutiny over allegations that he mishandled sexual abuse complaints filed in Chicago in 2000 and Peru in 2022. Newsweek has contacted the Vatican via email for comment on Friday. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests has called on Leo to institute a “truly universal zero tolerance law for sexual abuse and cover-up” by clergy and demanded an investigation into his handling of prior misconduct allegations, saying that “with the title comes a grave reckoning.”

“Tackling the pain, effects and causes that result from clerical sexual abuse” will be one of the pope’s biggest challenges, Thomas O’Loughlin, a professor of historical theology at the University of Nottingham and the former president of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain, told Newsweek.

Dwindling Numbers

While the number of Catholics is growing in some parts of the world, church attendance is declining in others—especially Europe. More than 321,000 German Catholics left the church in 2024, leaving the country with fewer than 20 million Catholics for the first time, according to the German Bishops’ Conference.

Pope Leo addressed the issue as he celebrated his first Mass in the Sistine Chapel on Friday, speaking of the need to spread Christianity to a world that often mocks it.

“There are many settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent. Settings where other securities are preferred, like technology, money, success, power or pleasure,” he said.

“These are contexts where it is not easy to preach the Gospel and bear witness to its truth, where believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied. Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed.”

The Vatican’s Finances

Pope Leo inherits the Vatican’s troubled finances, which Francis sought to fix even through the last few months of his life. Just days before he was hospitalized in February, he ordered the establishment of a commission to encourage donations from the faithful.

Despite the late pope’s spending cuts, the Vatican now faces an €83 million ($93.5 million) budget shortfall, according to Reuters. The Vatican’s pension fund faced up to €2 billion ($2.25 billion) in liabilities, the Wall Street Journal reported.

In November last year, Pope Francis warned that the Vatican’s pension fund needs “urgent structural” reform to guarantee future obligations.