Breaking Protocols for Love ...by Sr. Julian

After the conclusion of his Inaugural Mass for the public on May 18, 2025, Pope Leo XIV broke papal protocol in order to hug his brother Louis. Breaking protocols for love may well be one of the themes for this new pontiff.

Pope Leo XIV and brother Louis embrace

At this Mass Pope Leo exclaimed: “Brothers and sisters, this is the hour for love!”

Pope Leo is setting aside some of the ornamentation of the papacy. He declined to wear the traditional red shoes to his Inaugural Mass. The Pope traded his white skull cap (called the zucchetto), the symbol of the papacy, to wear a baseball cap given to him by a child. He didn’t hesitate for a minute to make the change. He has encouraged the bishopric to set aside their skull caps except for solemn occasions.

Pope Leo XIV is a White Sox fan

Once before becoming Pope, a child asked him for his pectoral cross. He immediately took it off and gave it to him. Pope Leo XIV has said that these ornaments can be a barrier between the clergy and the people, creating a distance. He has had an electric "Popemobile" built without the bullet-proof screen, rendering him accessible to the people and the people accessible to him.

Accessible to the people

Pope Leo has encouraged the clergy to give hugs, smiles and extend their hands to the shoulders of the laity. He referred to these as “sacraments of charity.”

The Catholic Catechism defines sacraments in this way: “The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions.”

By calling charity a sacrament, this new Pope has given ‘charity’ a similar status to the other seven sacraments. He sees charity as a vessel of divine life, a vehicle for grace for both the receiver and the giver. Charity is sacred.

I ask myself: how am I a sacrament of charity? In my words and actions am I a vehicle for grace? Do I understand the sacredness of charity and its sacred place in my life?

Pope Leo XIV is encouraging both love and unity. He said: “We are called to offer God’s love to everyone, in order to achieve that unity which does not cancel out differences but values the personal history of each person and the social and religious culture of every people… let us build a Church founded on God’s love, a sign of unity, a missionary Church that opens its arms to the world..." He also proclaimed: “Together, as one people, as brothers and sisters, let us walk towards God and love one another.”

Unity builds Love. Love builds Unity. Inclusivity is love together with unity.

Pope Leo XIV is heralding a new era of kindness and closeness. Putting aside protocols and traditions that create distance between the hierarchy and the laity is an important part of this new era. Elevating charity to the status of sacramentality prioritizes the message of Jesus to love one another. Indeed, this is the hour for love.