Pope Leo urges Cardinals to seek unity, not ‘promote personal agendas’.

Vatican City, Jan 8 (EFE).

Pope Leo XIV urged cardinals from around the world meeting at the Vatican on Thursday to pursue unity and warned that they were not called to “promote personal or group agendas” as they gathered for an extraordinary consistory.

“We have all stopped to be here; we have set aside our activities for a time, even renounced important commitments, in order to discern together what the Lord is asking of us,” the pope said during a Mass with the cardinals in St. Peter’s Basilica, according to remarks reported by EFE.

The U.S.-born pontiff convened about 170 cardinals who arrived in Rome for a two-day extraordinary consistory aimed at helping him make decisions about the future direction of the church.

In his homily, Leo XIV opened with an appeal for cooperation and understanding among the cardinals, who are often divided between reformist and conservative camps.

“We are not here to promote personal or group agendas, but to entrust our projects and inspirations to the scrutiny of a discernment that is greater than us and that can come only from the Lord,” he said. Many of those present also took part in the conclave that elected him eight months ago.

The extraordinary consistory — unlike the more limited and frequent ordinary consistories — was convened after the end of the Jubilee and Christmas rites to “offer support and counsel to the Holy Father in the exercise of his high and arduous responsibility of governing the Church,” according to a Vatican statement.

Cardinals are expected to offer the new pope their views on liturgy and other major issues after the 12-year pontificate of Pope Francis, who preferred to consult a small advisory council, as well as advice on reforms the new pontiff may pursue.

Under the Code of Canon Law, such extraordinary consistories are called only in cases of “special needs” or matters of “grave importance” for the church.

Leo XIV reminded those present that the gathering was not meant to function as a “team of experts,” but to collect the views of “each and every one” of them and take those views into account.

He pointed in particular to a world in which, he said, “satiety and hunger, abundance and misery, the struggle for survival and a desperate existential emptiness continue to divide and wound people, nations and communities.”

“Our College, though rich in many abilities and notable gifts, is not called to be a team of experts, but a community of faith in which the gifts each one brings … bear the greatest fruit,” he said.

The pope closed his homily by thanking the cardinals “from the bottom of my heart” for the summit and reminding them that even if solutions to the church’s problems are not always found, they can always count on one another — and on the pope — for mutual support.

“We will not always succeed in finding immediate solutions to the problems we must face. However, always, in any place and circumstance, we will be able to help one another, and in particular to help the pope,” he said, calling for collaboration.

He concluded: “Dear brothers, what you offer the Church through your service, at every level, is something great and extremely personal and profound, unique to each of you and valuable to all.” EFE