VATICAN CITY — Cardinals who attended Pope Leo XIV’s second extraordinary consistory said they valued parts of the meeting, but found it too brief, insufficiently focused on urgent internal Church issues, and too tightly structured to allow enough free discussion.
Held at the Vatican June 26-27, the gathering brought together 178 members of the College of Cardinals from around the world. It was the second such meeting convened by Pope Leo after a 12-year hiatus under Pope Francis.
Structured along “synodal” lines, the consistory divided participants into small language groups to discuss pre-set themes, including Pope Leo’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, the promotion of the common good, and implementation of the 2023-2024 Synod on Synodality.
Broader global concerns such as war, poverty, social fragmentation, and a growing sense of loneliness and loss of meaning featured prominently, while internal Church questions were largely omitted and confined to a brief final plenary session.
Several cardinals told the Register of their general satisfaction with the meeting. “It was very nice that we had the opportunity to share our stories,” said Cardinal Tarcisio Kikuchi of Tokyo. “It was just like a synod, a continuation of the synod.”
Cardinal Antoine Kimbanda of Kigali,
