Report that Pope Leo wants Cardinals Burke and Mamberti to restore the legal framework of the Church which was wrecked by Francis

The election of a Pope is not just a puff of white smoke. It is also—when God so wills—the beginning of a restoration. And this began, discreetly but powerfully, on the very night of the conclave, at the Santa Marta residence.

At the end of dinner on that historic evening, the Pope approached two cardinals who represent, each in their own way, the canonical rigor and doctrinal clarity that the Church urgently needs. He said to them, calmly but firmly: "Help me restore the Church's legal structure."

They were Raymond Leo Burke and Dominique Mamberti.

Two names, one mission

Burke, known for his tireless defense of canon law and traditional liturgy, had been marginalized during the previous pontificate. Mamberti, Prefect Emeritus of the Apostolic Signatura, is a brilliant diplomat, a sober and prudent jurist, who has avoided the limelight without renouncing the truth.

It wasn't a photo op. It was a request for collaboration. A clear indication of the direction the new Pope wants to take. And a message, both within and without: the time of arbitrariness, of "do whatever you want as long as you cite Francis," is over.

Ecclesiastical law, resurrected

For years, canon law has been ignored, reinterpreted, or outright trampled on by ideological commissions, makeshift secretariats, or synods of convenience. The new Pope, who knows firsthand what it means to suffer episcopal machinations as a prefect—as happened with the famous "Spanish Commission" on appointments, now dissolved—knows that without law there is no justice, and without justice there is no communion.

That is why he wants the Church to restore respect for its own law: not as a bureaucratic straitjacket, but as a guarantee of truth, order, and authentic freedom.

First Gestures, First Signs

In his first weeks of pontificate, Leo XIV preferred silence to overexposure. He celebrated Mass with sobriety, avoided making wisecracks in interviews, and let his actions speak for themselves. One of them, perhaps the most significant so far, was that nighttime prayer in Santa Marta: the beginning of a new style, of a reform built not on slogans but on convictions.

A serious hope

We are not facing a media revolution. There are no selfies, no random hugs, no ambiguous phrases. But there is hope. And this hope is expressed in concrete names, in institutional decisions, and in a return to ecclesial common sense. If Leo XIV maintains the course he set that first night, the Church will be able to begin to heal many of the wounds opened during the last decade.

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