On the afternoon of Easter Sunday last year, Pope Francis was driven through St Peter’s Square in an open-topped Popemobile. A few weeks earlier he had nearly died from pneumonia, so pilgrims were thrilled to watch him blessing babies. They told journalists that it was a miracle to see the 88-year-old Argentinian in such good shape.

At 9.45 the next morning the Vatican announced that Francis had just died from a stroke. And so began the preparations for a conclave that elected the second pope from the Americas. Cardinal Robert Prevost – ‘Bob’ to his friends – was a Chicago-born dual citizen of the United States and Peru. Until 2023 he’d been bishop of the Peruvian diocese of Chiclayo. He wasn’t exactly an obscure figure, having previously been head of the Augustinian order. But it was a surprise when Francis catapulted him into the Vatican as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops.

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Prevost had been a cardinal for only 19 months when he became Pope Leo XIV. Easter is early this year, so we’re still some weeks away from the anniversary of his election on 8 May. But that is long enough, surely, to anticipate the direction of his pontificate? Not necessarily. The press like to call Leo ‘the Quiet American’, intending it as a compliment. They presumably haven’t read Graham Greene’s novel, in which Vietnamese civilians are blown to pieces by the criminally naive CIA operative of the title. Leo is certainly quiet: at 70 years old, he has the gauche smile of a student at a junior prom. But he isn’t naive. He knows – though he’d never say so – that in some respects the 12-year pontificate of his predecessor was cynically divisive. It is his job to repair the damage. But how?

Pope Francis went out of his way to provoke his critics by promoting campaigners for LGBT rights and women’s ordination. He didn’t personally support either of these causes but he relished their disruptive power. He threw a withered bouquet to gays in the form of ‘non-liturgical’ blessings for same-sex couples – but took it back when the African cardinals went nuclear. He encouraged a debate over women deacons and then abruptly declared in a television interview that change wasn’t possible.

By contrast, Francis........

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