Originally published at The Crux
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“Once is a fluke and twice is a coincidence,” begins a pretty standard version of a popular saying, “but three times is a pattern.”
If there is any truth to the expression, then the past week or so may well have provided the three data points needed to begin wondering whether the honeymoon period of Leo XIV’s pontificate is over.
To ask the question is not to answer it – not quite – but everyone knew the honeymoon wouldn’t last forever.
In the bottom half of September and into early October, the pontiff faced real challenges testing his leadership in three key areas: Clerical sexual abuse and coverup, curial reform, and synodality.
A powerful cardinal’s a new assignment
This past week, Leo moved the controversial archpriest of St. Peter’s, Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, to the central Italian archdiocese of Chieti-Vasto.
A 2021 Francis appointment to the St. Peter’s position – a powerful post controlling significant real estate and resources – the 60-year-old Gambetti, had a tumultuous tenure at the Vatican basilica.
In Chieti-Vasto, Gambetti succeeds 77-year-old Archbishop Bruno Forte, a Tubingen-trained theologian and a known quantity to Vatican watchers who rose to prominence during the 2014 synod on the family
