As Vatican Leaders Retire, Who Will Leo XIV Choose to Fill Their Seats?
Pope Leo XIV has resumed most activities after surgery for adenocarcinoma, and doctors say he needs no further treatment. The Pope is expected to make several senior Curia appointments by February as Francis-era leaders reach or pass retirement age. New prefects are needed for the Dicasteries for the Laity, Family and Life; Causes of Saints; Promotion of Christian Unity; and Divine Worship. The Clergy prefect’s departure is less urgent because his term could be extended. Leo’s choices will signal his priorities, including how he approaches calls for liturgical peace and the implementation of *Traditionis Custodes*.
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Pope Leo XIV is expected to make several consequential Vatican appointments by February as senior curial leaders reach or exceed retirement age. The National Catholic Register’s analysis says the choices—especially who succeeds Cardinal Arthur Roche at the liturgy dicastery—could indicate how Leo intends to balance continuity with Pope Francis’s legacy and a less confrontational approach to church governance.
The most immediate vacancies are expected at the Dicasteries for the Laity, Family and Life; the Causes of Saints; the Promotion of Christian Unity; and Divine Worship. The leadership change at the Dicastery for Clergy is less urgent: its prefect, Cardinal Lazarus You Heung-sik, turns 75 in November, but his term could be extended.
At the Laity, Family and Life dicastery, Cardinal Kevin Farrell is 79 and also serves as camerlengo. The article says an outside appointment may be considered, noting that the dicastery’s second-in-command is a layperson.
Cardinal Roche, 76, has been a prominent advocate and enforcer of Traditionis Custodes, Pope Francis’s restrictions on the traditional Latin Mass. The article says Leo’s choice of a successor will be watched for indications of whether he seeks a more balanced approach to traditionalist Catholics and those who worship according to the newer rite.
The article characterizes Leo’s approach so far as neither overturning Francis’s liturgical decisions nor enforcing them rigidly. It notes that permissions for the traditional Latin Mass have reportedly been granted upon request in England and that participants in the 2025 Paris-Chartres pilgrimage said the Pope sent them a message of support.
An outsider to the Curia—possibly a cardinal or archbishop—is discussed as a potential choice to lead Divine Worship, though no appointment has been announced. The article presents such a selection as a possible move toward easing tensions over liturgy.
The analysis contrasts Leo’s more formal style with Francis’s reliance on informal advisers and unconventional appointments. It points to Leo’s restoration of regular business consistories for cardinals and some papal traditions, while noting that Francis’s synodal process continues under the new pontificate.
The article says it remains difficult to identify a close circle of advisers around Leo or predict his decisions. It describes his stated direction as bringing greater stability to church governance without dismantling his predecessor’s initiatives.
Several major archdioceses are also approaching leadership changes, including Barcelona, Paris and Milan. A new archbishop will be needed in Esztergom-Budapest next year as Cardinal Péter Erdő turns 75; recent choices in Westminster and Prague, described by the article as conservative figures, may offer clues to Leo’s approach, but it is unclear whether such appointees will be made cardinals.
Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who turns 72 in January, is not yet near the usual retirement age. The article reports speculation that Leo could reorganize his leadership team and that Parolin might be offered the role of grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre; it also recounts criticism of Parolin’s comments about a possible “remodulation” of the pontificate while Leo was hospitalized.
The article reports that Leo’s doctors cleared him for most scheduled activities after surgery to remove a lung lobe for adenocarcinoma, with no further treatment planned. His visit to an interreligious prayer meeting in Assisi was canceled on medical advice, while his planned trip to Argentina, Peru and Uruguay was confirmed to proceed.
After senior posts are filled, the article anticipates a consistory to create new cardinals, whose profiles could offer further indications of Leo’s priorities.
Papal authority and governance in the Roman Curia
Papal authority in the Roman Curia is supreme, but exercised through a body whose role is to assist and serve. The Curia does not possess an independent authority over the universal Church: it acts in the Pope’s name and by his authority, within responsibilities assigned to its offices. At the same time, this service is meant to support communion with bishops and local Churches—not to place a bureaucratic barrier between them and the Pope.
The Pope’s universal governance belongs to his office as successor of Peter. The 1983 Code says that he “usually conducts the affairs of the universal Church through the Roman Curia,” which acts “in his name and by his authority” for the good and service of the Churches. It adds that the Curia’s constitution and competence are determined by special law.
That wording distinguishes the Pope’s authority from the Curia’s function. The Pope is the source of the authority exercised by Curial offices; the Curia is the set of institutions through which he ordinarily carries out parts of his universal ministry. Its officials and departments are not a second, autonomous center of ecclesiastical sovereignty. Their authority is real, but it is bounded by the responsibilities assigned to them and exercised in relation to the Pope’s pastoral office.
The 2022 apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium describes the Curia as being “at the service of the Pope” and says that its work is organically related to the College of Bishops, individual bishops, and episcopal conferences. Its formulation is significant:
The Roman Curia is not set between the Pope and the Bishops, but is at the service of both, according to the modalities proper to the nature of each.
In other words, the Curia is intended to help the Pope serve the universal Church while also assisting the bishops in their own pastoral responsibilities. It should facilitate communication and cooperation, rather than function as a gatekeeper that replaces the Pope’s relationship with the bishops or the bishops’ care for their local Churches.
The Curia’s authority is often described as vicarious: it is exercised on behalf of the Pope, not as an independent authority belonging to the Curia in its own right. Pastor Bonus, the earlier constitution on the Curia, explained that Curial offices receive their power from the Roman Pontiff and exercise it within a relationship of dependence on him. It also stressed that their work has defined limits and should faithfully serve the good of the Churches and the bishops.
This does not mean that every Curial act must be personally made or signed by the Pope. The Code says the Pope usually governs through the Curia, and the Curia’s offices have their own assigned competences under special law. The practical point is that decisions made within those competences belong to a system of papal governance; they are not a separate magisterium or an independent jurisdiction competing with the Pope. The materials available here do not specify the current competence of each dicastery, so particular kinds of decisions cannot be mapped in detail on this evidence alone.
The Pope’s authority is supreme in the Church’s governance, but Catholic teaching does not present it as permission to govern arbitrarily or contrary to the faith. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explains that the primacy includes the right to carry out acts of governance needed to promote and defend the unity of faith and communion, such as issuing laws for the universal Church or establishing pastoral structures. It immediately qualifies this by saying that papal primacy does not mean the Pope has “absolute power.” The Pope’s ministry is bound to the Church’s Tradition, communion with the bishops, and the faith of the whole People of God.
Benedict XVI likewise describes the Pope not as someone who may simply “do what he likes,” but as a custodian of obedience to Christ and the Church’s rule of faith. He presents governance as pastoral service: authority is ordered to guiding and protecting the faithful and to the building up of the Church. This helps clarify the moral and theological purpose of Curial administration: it should serve the Church’s mission, unity, and pastoral good, rather than treat governance as mere control.
The Curia’s service to the Pope does not make the bishops mere local administrators of a centralized bureaucracy. Praedicate Evangelium says the Curia is organically related to the College of Bishops and individual bishops and is at the service of both the Pope and the bishops, in ways proper to each. Pastor Bonus similarly describes the Curia’s work as related to the bishops’ own personal office, both as members of the episcopal college and as pastors of particular Churches. It says the Curia should facilitate communion and the sharing of concerns between bishops and the Pope.
This relationship is not a simple division in which the Pope governs and bishops merely execute Curial instructions. Rather, universal governance and the bishops’ pastoral responsibility are related within the Church’s communion. The Pope exercises primacy for the whole Church; bishops remain pastors of their particular Churches, while also belonging to the episcopal college. The Curia is meant to assist the exercise of the Pope’s universal ministry in a way that respects this ecclesial relationship.
A useful way to understand the Curia is to keep three points together: the Pope’s authority is supreme; Curial authority is exercised in his name and within assigned competence; and both are ordered to communion and service. Separating any one of these points can distort the picture. Treating the Curia as an independent power misunderstands its dependence on the Pope; treating the Pope’s primacy as arbitrary misunderstands its accountability to Christ, the faith, and the Church’s communion; and treating the Curia as a barrier between Rome and local Churches contradicts the service the governing documents assign it.