Pope calls Diocese of Rome to pastoral evaluation: ‘Do less and do it better'
Pope Leo XIV urged the Diocese of Rome to start its pastoral year with a shared evaluation process focused on encounter with Christ, community, and service to the city. He emphasized listening, discerning, and reviewing past initiatives rather than launching new programs, aiming to identify what works and why some initiatives fail. The Pope highlighted three priority areas: helping people meet Christ, fostering genuine community, and actively serving the city of Rome. He warned against overloading the Church with activities, advocating for quality over quantity and encouraging the formation of mature, missionary disciples.
12 days ago
Pope Leo XIV has asked the Diocese of Rome to begin a shared, multiyear process of pastoral evaluation rather than launch additional programs. The process is intended to identify what is effective, address what is not, and help the Church focus on Christ, community, service to Rome and the formation of lay and clergy leaders. 1
Speaking at the opening of the Diocese of Rome’s pastoral year on September 18 at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, Pope Leo told hundreds of clergy and lay leaders that he was proposing a method, not a new pastoral program. The Diocese of Rome includes 334 parishes and covers approximately 340 square miles. 1
The evaluation is to involve the entire ecclesial community and, where possible, people who do not regularly attend church. It will examine what has borne fruit, what has failed to produce results and the reasons behind both outcomes. 1
Pope Leo urged diocesan leaders to ask why each activity exists, what evangelical purpose motivates it, what need it addresses and how it serves the Church’s mission. The results should help determine which activities should be maintained, strengthened, corrected, abandoned or newly undertaken. 1
The Pope connected the process with earlier diocesan work. A report on the Diocese’s “spiritual illnesses” was presented to Pope Francis in 2018, after which Francis called for a multiyear response aimed at making pastoral action more responsive to the needs of people in Rome and more sustainable for priests and their collaborators. Leo said the Diocese was continuing rather than restarting that work, while also drawing on the Church’s ongoing synodal experience of listening and shared discernment. 1
The first priority is whether pastoral activities genuinely lead people to Christ and help them connect the Gospel with their concrete lives. Pope Leo used the Gospel account of Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb, particularly Jesus’ questions, “Why are you weeping?” and “Whom are you seeking?”, as a framework for the Church’s own examination.
He said that, just as Mary recognised Jesus when he called her by name, people in Church communities should be seen, known and personally accompanied rather than treated as anonymous participants.
The evaluation will also consider whether parish and diocesan activities create communities marked by authentic relationships, welcome, accompaniment and shared responsibility. Pope Leo specifically highlighted the need to give young people time and attentive listening. 1
A third focus is whether the Church is genuinely present in Rome and responsive to the city’s hopes, vulnerabilities and questions. The Pope described Rome not merely as the setting for Church activity but as the place where the Diocese carries out its mission. 1
The fourth priority is formation: helping people mature in faith, become missionary disciples, accept responsibility within the Church and translate their faith into concrete choices and service. The process is to apply across areas including catechesis and Christian initiation, youth, family life, charity and vocations. 1
Pope Leo said pastoral evaluation should not become another obligation added to the workload of priests and pastoral workers. Instead, he said it should give the Church permission to “do less — and to do it better.” 1
He called priests to listen before responding and discern before deciding. He also urged them to recognise the charisms of laypeople and enable their shared responsibility, saying that priestly leadership should not depend on one person carrying out every task. 1
According to the Pope, a community that depends entirely on its priest is fragile. Presiding, he said, means fostering communion, connecting people and situations, valuing the gifts of others and safeguarding unity rather than doing everything personally. 1
The process is intended to unfold over several stages and more than one year. Leadership meetings should increasingly become places of encounter, dialogue and shared pastoral planning rather than occasions for simply adding new initiatives. 1
Before Pope Leo’s address, a young woman, a couple and a member of the diocesan Caritas team described experiences from their lives and service. The Pope thanked those involved in the Diocese’s work and said that much of what is good “doesn’t make any noise,” while affirming that it is known to God and should also be acknowledged by the Church. 1
To provide a concrete example for the evaluation process, Pope Leo announced that he had approved the steps needed to begin a diocesan inquiry into the life, virtues and reputation for holiness of Don Luigi Di Liegro, the priest who founded the Diocese of Rome’s Caritas. 1
Di Liegro, who died in 1997 at nearly 69, emphasized seeing social realities directly before designing responses. He addressed the causes of poverty and homelessness and described charitable assistance as an act of justice and solidarity with the suffering and hopes of the city’s poor, including foreigners. 1
Pope Leo linked Di Liegro’s example of seeing and listening with the broader question guiding the Diocese’s discernment: “Lord, where are you?” He expressed hope that the evaluation process would lead to renewed pastoral experiences and a shared path toward the Jubilee of the Redemption in 2033.*
Assess Rome’s pastoral efficacy through shared, synodal evaluation
Rome’s pastoral efficacy should be assessed not merely by administrative efficiency or public approval, but by whether the Roman Curia and the Bishop of Rome help local Churches grow in communion, participation, mission, safeguarding, and evangelization. A genuinely synodal evaluation would be shared, evidence-based, spiritually discerning, and accountable to the faithful—while respecting the Pope’s proper authority.
Evaluation should ask whether Roman policies actually help dioceses:
Pope Leo XIV has emphasized that participatory bodies should connect communal discernment with pastoral decisions, while warning that structures can become merely “a few meetings” without shared pastoral action.
The Curia is not meant to function as an intermediary standing between the Pope and the bishops. Its stated role is to serve both, listen to local Churches, and encourage collaboration among dicasteries.
Accordingly, Rome’s efficacy should be judged partly by whether its decisions:
This does not mean decentralization without unity. Catholic synodal structures are generally consultative, not autonomous governing bodies that replace the Pope or bishops.
Those exercising authority bear a heightened responsibility to account for their ministry before God and the People of God. The Synod therefore calls for restoring the community’s role in holding authority accountable, not merely maintaining hierarchical reporting lines.
At the Roman level, this could include:
The Synod specifically proposes that evaluation of the Curia and pontifical representatives be considered, and that ad limina visits become opportunities for open exchange and mutual listening.
A shared evaluation should include:
The Synod explicitly recommends drawing on lay expertise in accountability and evaluation and adapting appropriate best practices from civil society.
Evaluation should combine quantitative indicators with spiritual and pastoral discernment. Useful indicators might include:
The Synod proposes annual reports on a local Church’s mission, safeguarding, participation of laity in authority, and periodic evaluation of ministries. It stresses that such reporting should educate the Church and change its culture, not become bureaucracy for its own sake.
The danger is twofold. First, synodality could become procedural: consultation without meaningful influence, or meetings without coordinated action. Pope Leo XIV warns precisely against structures that lose their function as instruments of communion.
Second, evaluation could become managerial or adversarial, treating pastoral ministry as though it were reducible to statistics or subjecting ecclesial authority to popularity tests. Properly understood, evaluation is assistance: it identifies strengths, exposes areas for improvement, helps Churches learn from experience, and supports attentiveness to the Holy Spirit.
Rome’s pastoral efficacy is best assessed through a recurring cycle: listen, discern, decide, implement, report, and revise. Shared evaluation would strengthen—not weaken—the Petrine ministry if it remains ordered to the Church’s mission, respects legitimate authority, includes the whole People of God, and converts pastoral experience into accountable learning. The unresolved practical question is how much of this evaluation should remain consultative and how much should receive juridically binding force; the current material strongly supports wider participation and accountability but does not settle that canonical question.