On May 8, 2025, Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected Pontiff of the Catholic Church. After a day and a half of deliberations, the various sensibilities of the College of Cardinals chose the man who, until then, served as the prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

The months have passed with great speed. Several biographies of the new Pope have already appeared in bookstores. The only one I dare to recommend, for its balance and for featuring exclusive interviews with the Pontiff himself, is written by Elise Ann Allen: “Leo XIV: Citizen of the World, 21st Century Missionary” (Debate, Barcelona, 2025).

Those of us who collaborated closely with Cardinal Prevost were surprised to discover, through this book, many details of a life he kept with enormous discretion: the discovery of his vocation, his formation, his years as a missionary in Peru, and also the difficulties he had to go through at various moments.

It is impossible to summarize the Pope’s life here. I will limit myself to highlighting one small detail narrated in the book. In 1996, Robert Prevost arrived at the Augustinian formation house in Trujillo, Peru. There he met Ramiro Castillo, who had him as a spiritual director. At one point, at nineteen years old, Castillo confessed that he could not concentrate during prayer. Prevost gave him simple advice: go to your room, close the door, light a small candle, and start praying. The scene could not be more sober: solitude, prayer, and a dim light that returns the gaze to the essential.

This small episode reveals a very particular religious sensibility: the delicacy of one who knows how to accompany the subtle battles of the inner world. It shows, at the same time, the extent to which Prevost is a pastor and a father who lives his ministry from an experience very different from that of ideological or power struggles.

In recent weeks, various actors in the political life of the United States, Spain, and other countries have questioned the Pope for his passionate defense of peace, the dignity of migrants, and for his lucid warning about the risks that artificial intelligence poses to the dignity of work and to the understanding of the true meaning of the human. Faced with this, it is legitimate to wonder where the freedom comes from with which Leo XIV dares to challenge our consciences.

Some analyses have tried to pigeonhole the Pope into a purely ideological reading. Leo XIV is, they say, an adversary of the “extreme right.” But the matter is deeper. The Pope does not disconcert the powerful because he opposes one ideology with another, nor because he seeks to fit into the board of momentary interests. He disconcerts because he speaks from a higher parameter: the Gospel lived as a criterion of judgment, as a source of freedom, and as a horizon that makes one uncomfortable when it touches fibers that almost no one dares to touch.

Leo XIV has said that his mission is to announce Jesus Christ: to proclaim the good news that a child born in a poor manger in Bethlehem, who died and rose years later, can welcome and embrace everyone without exception. That persecuted and fragile child is our peace. It is the disarmed and disarming peace that invites us to look at the world and life in a different way.