A day after closing out the 2025 Holy Year, Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday opened a new phase of his pontificate by gathering the world’s cardinals to Rome and indicating some reform-minded priorities going forward. For starters, Leo signalled an emphasis on more fully implementing the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the 1960s meetings that modernized and revolutionized the Catholic Church. He called the Vatican II teachings the “guiding star” of the church. Leo told his weekly general audience that for the foreseeable future, he would devote his weekly catechism lessons to a rereading of key Vatican II documents, noting that the generation of bishops and theologians who had attended the meetings and crafted the reforms are dead. “Therefore, while we hear the call not to let its prophecy fade, and to continue to seek ways and means to implement its insights, it will be important to get to know it again closely, and to do so not through hearsay or interpretations that have been given, but by rereading its documents and reflecting on their content,” he said. “Indeed, it is t