Millennial writer Sr. Bethany Welch writes:

My prayer is that the man the cardinals selected as pope can help us renew a sense of communion. The Catholic Church is at its best when our efforts foster union and cultivate love, when we function not as a bureaucracy needing to be managed, but as a mystery of mutual relationships in which we experience oneness through Christ.

Pope Leo XIV cannot manufacture the communion that leads to justice and peace. But he can choose a path of encounter and go to the margins to hear excluded voices. Each person invested in the life of the church can participate in the same way. The Holy Father remarked in his first greeting, “Without fear, united hand in hand with God, and among ourselves, let us move forward.” It seems that he is ready to walk this way together.