The Doctrine According to Leo XIV

Costantino Esposito - The speech given by Pope Leo XIV to the members of the Centesimus Annus Foundation on May 17, 2025, raised an important question for understanding the nature and method of Christian teaching in light of the cultural challenges emerging in our societies. In taking up this question, I certainly do not intend to “explain” what the Holy Father said, but rather to reflect on what it suggests we should rethink—and even correct—regarding our usual way of understanding the Christian faith and experience in the world.

The question, stated in its simplest terms, is this: What is Christian “doctrine,” and what is its scope? According to the usual criteria of judgment, this would seem to be a useless question because it is considered obvious. Is it not commonly believed that doctrine is a compact and organic set of teachings about the nature of things, the value of existence, and moral guidelines for behavior? In common understanding, “doctrine” is often seen as a theoretical framework for how things are believed to be or should be. It is a foundation that has already been acquired and known, which allows us to orient ourselves in the world and distinguish the true from the false, the right from the wrong, based on an absolute—or at least objective—criterion that, in principle, cannot depend on subjective motivations.

Pope Leo XIV delicately yet precisely rethinks this purely “rationalist” notion of doctrine, which is also found in philosophical and ideological perspectives distant from “Christian doctrine.” He does so following in the footsteps of Pope Francis and drawing an unexpected connection to the teachings of Pope Leo XIII, who in some way redefined the very meaning of Christian doctrine through the perspective of a “social doctrine” of the Church, especially in his encyclical Rerum Novarum of 1891. It is precisely this “social” character of doctrine that sheds new, more explicit light on the fact that Christian doctrine “is a dynamic and continuous interweaving of grace and freedom” and seeks to develop as an “instrument of peace and dialogue for building bridges of universal brotherhood.”

Therefore, it is not just about a specific application of Christian teaching to social issues, but about its very method: recognizing that the way we approach problems is more important than the problems themselves or their solutions, with criteria of evaluation, ethical principles, and openness to God’s grace.

As the Pope repeatedly points out in his speech, this doctrine has an inevitable point of verification: to place “science and conscience in dialogue” and thus contribute “to knowledge, hope, and peace.” This is possible because, by its very nature, doctrine should never be seen as an imposition that compromises people’s freedom: “Indoctrination is immoral because it stifles critical thinking, violates the sacred freedom of conscience—even when that conscience is mistaken—and resists new insights by rejecting change and the evolution of ideas in response to new challenges.”

What stands out in this quotation is the idea that freedom of conscience is “sacred,” even when it leads to error. This is not an endorsement of error or relativism, but a crucial methodological point: doctrine is never merely a heritage or a traditional canon; it cannot be equated with “a set of ideas belonging to a religion,” which would make us feel “unfree to reflect, question, or seek new alternatives.” On the contrary, to be formed and communicated, it requires the work of verification and conviction by free individuals.

In much of contemporary philosophy and common understanding, “doctrine” and “truth” are often seen as opposed to “freedom.” It is particularly significant that the head of the Catholic Church is revisiting a question—even a semantic one—that many considered settled as a contradiction: not only must Christian doctrine be integrated with freedom, as if they were two foreign phenomena to be reconciled later, but doctrine itself requires verification by freedom to be authentic. That is, it must be not only already known, but discovered, rediscovered, and regained as that which can make human experience free through the profound meaning of the things of the world.

From this perspective, understanding how to approach a problem is more important than briefly explaining why it happened or how to solve it; the goal is to learn how to confront ever-changing problems, as each generation brings new challenges, dreams, and questions. This perspective challenges the extreme polarization in contemporary culture and the dominance of powerful groups over the marginalized: “For many of our contemporaries, the words ‘dialogue’ and ‘doctrine’ sound opposed, incompatible.” It will therefore be necessary to show a “different and promising meaning” of the Church’s social doctrine: it “is not equivalent to an opinion, but to a common, choral, and even multidisciplinary journey towards the truth.”

While it is true that only the truth can set us free (Jn 8:32), this means not only that freedom should be grounded in truth, but also that truth is confirmed not just through doctrine or argument, but through its power to liberate.