Who could be Leo’s pick for Secretary of State, whenever it comes?

One of the remaining great unknowns of the Leonine pontificate is when the pope could choose to replace the heads of Vatican departments remaining from the Francis papacy.

At the largest and most influential of these, the Secretariat of State, Pope Leo XIV could replace Cardinal Pietro Parolin as Secretary of State as early as this summer, according to several diplomatic and Vatican sources who spoke to The Pillar.

The move, if it happens, would replace the Vatican’s second-highest official and the pope’s closest institutional advisor. According to several of these sources, Pope Leo has privately expressed some reservations about Parolin’s effectiveness as the epicenter of curial organization, a dynamic that may have led the pope to start considering replacing him.

While no one knows except the pope when he might choose to replace the 71-year-old Parolin, speculation has already begun about his potential successors.

The Vatican City rumor mill currently favors a traditional appointment of a curial official with diplomatic experience, with Archbishop Paul Gallagher and Archbishop Fortunatus Nwachukwu considered the leading candidates. But the trend of senior appointments under Leo so far suggests at least the possibility of a candidate from outside the