There can no longer be doubt where Pope Leo stands: the Church must now put into effect the Synod’s Final Document agreed at the October 2024 assembly, and urgently, because we are well into the implementation phase, and the evangelising credibility of the Church’s witness is at stake.

Such was the Pope’s message at the second extraordinary consistory he has called this year, gathering the world’s cardinals to focus on interconnected themes he summed up as “our view of the world, peace, the common good and synodality”. All the topics were important. But it was the passion with which he emphasised the fourth of these which surprised many of them, and the way he connected it with collegiality, which is what Leo is now doing when he calls the cardinals (and later this year, the bishops) together to discern with him. Both moves – implementing synodality, instituting collegiality – were high on the list of reasons the cardinals elected Leo, and he is not disappointing them.

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