Leo XIV and the Challenge of Catholic Reform

When Robert Francis Prevost OSA appeared on the loggia of St. Peter’s on 8th May 2025, he surprised the world.

The first North American pope is a quiet man few had heard of, following the legacy of one the most media savvy pontiffs in history. Yet with subtle gestures, Pope Leo has shown that he is a bridge-builder, a man willing to unite the factions in a deeply divided Church.

In this comprehensive book which joins biography with critical examination of the state of the Church, veteran journalist Christopher R. Altieri explores Prevost’s life and work, from his early years in Chicago to his ministry in Peru, and how he came to be chosen as leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.

Altieri provides insight into the politics of the 2025 conclave, alongside Pope Leo’s choice of papal name, and the major challenges and deep-rooted problems of the Church that he now must run - and all at a time when the world is asking big questions about what it means to be human in a complex ethical world of AI and global conflict.

Through this Pope Leo emerges as a quiet man of true humility, with a track record as an efficient administrator and conciliatory figure, whose background in Canon Law might just offer him the skills needed to govern and reshape the modern Church.

Christopher R. Altieri is a journalist, writer, and editor with nearly two decades’ experience in print, digital, and broadcast journalism. He has several years of senior editorial leadership experience. After more than a dozen years on the English-language news desk at Vatican Radio Altieri became the Catholic Herald’s first Rome Bureau Chief, then International Editor and later Executive Editor.

An expert on the Vatican with strong knowledge of the global Church and especially the Church in the United States, Altieri is an accomplished investigator who has broken and reported major stories on a host of issues related to Church governance.

Altieri holds a PhD (research doctorate in philosophy) from the Pontifical Gregorian University and is author of three books: The Soul of a Nation: America as a Tradition of Inquiry and Nationhood (2015, Pickwick), Into the Storm: Chronicle of a Year in Crisis (2020, TAN Books), and How To Read the News without Losing Your Faith (2021, CTS). Altieri contributed the final chapter to the Wiley Blackwell Companion to Catholicism (2nd edition, 30 April 2024), on ’Challenges for the Catholic Church’.