Pope Leo XIV's first extraordinary consistory of his pontificate is unfolding over three sessions in Vatican City, beginning Wednesday afternoon and continuing through Thursday, according to the Vatican.
On Thursday morning at 7:30 a.m., the Pope will concelebrate Mass with the assembled cardinals at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter's Basilica.
A consistory is a formal meeting of the Pope and the College of Cardinals. It's one of the Vatican's more buttoned-up gatherings, used to handle fundamental business like creating new cardinals, approving causes for canonization, or consulting the cardinals on major Church matters.
An extraordinary consistory is convened when the Pope wants to consult the entire College of Cardinals on major issues facing the Church.
It's only partially public, with the Vatican typically opening the proceedings to the media before moving the real discussions behind closed doors.
While cameras may capture formal addresses and ceremonial moments, the substantive exchanges among cardinals, often focused on sensitive or consequential issues, take place in private with only carefully filtered summaries emerging afterward.
Pope Francis held multiple ordinary consistories during his pontificate, most notably to create new cardinals, but only held one extraordinary consistory in 2014 to discuss family, marriage, and pastoral challenges, a clear signal that something consequential was coming.
A letter sent out by Pope Leo XIV to the College of Cardinals urged the bishops to revisit Evangelii gaudium, the apostolic exhortation that launched Pope Francis' pontificate, along with Praedicate evangelium.
He added that synodality and liturgy would be among the key themes for discussion.
During his morning general audience Wednesday, Pope Leo gave the strongest signal yet about the direction of his still-young pontificate, calling for the full implementation of the reforms of Vatican II, the 1960s meetings that modernized and revolutionized the Catholic Church and remain a source of debate today.
The Pope said that for the foreseeable future, he would devote his weekly catechism lessons to a rereading of key Vatican II documents, noting that the generation of bishops and theologians who had attended the meetings and crafted the reforms are dead.
"Therefore, while we hear the call not to let its prophecy fade and to continue to seek ways and means to implement its insights, it will be important to get to know it again closely and to do so not through hearsay or interpretations that have been given, but by rereading its documents and reflecting on their content," he said.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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