VATICAN CITY (VATICAN CITY)
Crux [Denver CO]
August 13, 2025
By Christopher R. Altieri
Pope Leo XIV returned to the Vatican three weeks ago, after a stay at the papal summer retreat of Castel Gandolfo, but Rome is pretty much a ghost town between August 13 and whatever Tuesday happens to follow.
Romans head for the seaside, the hills outside the city, or pretty much anywhere else for the ancient Roman feragosto (ferragosto in Italian, but the Romans say it with one rolled r).
The holiday is celebrated all throughout Italy, and coincides with the solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but it has its origins in pagan antiquity.
Octavian Caesar, better known as the Emperor Augustus, first instituted the holiday as the feriae Augusti in 18 BC. He placed it on the first day of August, and it helped string together a series of older Roman holidays. The Church moved the holiday in Rome to coincide with the solemnity of the Assumption, sometime in late antiquity (or the early Middle Ages).
Italy’s infamous dictator, Benito Mussolini, used the holiday to ingratiate himself with the poor and working classes throughout the country by offering cut-rate train tickets around the time of ferragosto.
You can’t blame the Romans for wanting to get out of town, either. Some of Rome’s oldest parts were built atop land reclaimed from what was basically a fever swamp. The city is oppressively hot and muggy in the summer, and usually hottest and muggiest in August.
I was thinking of all that as I reflected on the prodigious papal in-tray, especially regarding the episcopate in the United States. There are nine sees with bishops turning 75 – the age at which bishops are required to submit their resignations – between now and the end of the year.
Three of them, Archbishops Samuel Aquila of Denver, Thomas Wenski of Miami, and John Wester of Santa Fe, lead metropolitan sees.
Sixteen others are over the age limit, including Archbishops Gregory Aymond of New Orleans, George Thomas of Las Vegas (which only became an archdiocese in 2023), and Roberto Gonzales of San Juan, and cardinals Timothy Dolan of New York and Blase Cupich of Chicago (Pope Leo’s native city).
It is going to be interesting to see how quickly Leo moves to replace the men who are aging out (or have already aged out), and more interesting to see his picks to succeed them.
Closer to Rome, the new pope will also have to start assembling his leadership team sooner or later.
Pope Leo has expressed great appreciation for the Roman curia and the curial system – he has a reputation as an institutionalist – which means it is reasonable to expect he will govern through the curia rather than by sheer force of personality.
In order to do that, he will need some of his own people in place.
Pope Leo confirmed senior curial officials after his election – technically, most appointments lapse when the papal see becomes vacant – but that is standard practice.
While it would make for great copy if a new pope were to fire the old pope’s whole team, it would also create exactly the kind of confusion and paralysis that makes the expression, “You can’t fire the whole team,” a maxim.
There are several senior curial leaders, however, who are over the age of 75.
The prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Jesuit Cardinal Michael Czerny, is the oldest at 79. Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who heads the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and Life, will turn 78 in September. The prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro will turn 78 in December.
The prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, English Cardinal Arthur Roche, turned 75 earlier this year, as did Cardinal Kurt Koch, who leads the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity.
With the exception of Koch, who has led the Christian Unity department since Pope Benedict XVI appointed him in 2010, all the aforementioned cardinals are men Francis raised.
What Pope Leo XIV decides to do with them will be interesting, and his decisions or indecisions are sure to be parsed by the chattering classes.
Optics are not the most important thing, but they are not unimportant, either.
Another old maxim that rings true today as ever, is the one that says personnel is policy.
Follow Chris Altieri on X: @craltieri