Pope Leo XIV has quit the heat of the Vatican and taken up residence in Castel Gandolfo, a papal property that sits atop a hill southeast of the city, with a calming view of Lake Albano. He’ll be there until 20 July and has also booked himself in for a long weekend in August. 

Leo’s departure from the sultry Holy See has made the news because his predecessor, Pope Francis, was not a Gandolfo man and declined to spend his summers there (indeed, he displayed little interest in most of the potential perks of the job, eschewing much of the ceremonial regalia and even moving out of the papal apartments in Vatican City). Unsurprisingly, the locals are delighted that Leo has embraced this summer pope-on-the-move tradition that dates back to 1626, even if there is still no official Leo trinketry for them to sell in the souvenir shops.

Leo, aka Sporty Pope, is expected to fit in some tennis and find a spot of downtime. But he’s unlikely to have an out-of-office (OOO) message set on his laptop – the American Pope reportedly has a habit of staying up to 03.00 sending messages on Whatsapp. Plus, he has his first encyclical to bash out. 

And in this, the Pope reveals himself to be a man of our times. For while he might be more associated with Holy Weeks, he is, like many of us, also a paid-up practitioner of “holi-work”, that limbo in which you are definitely not in the office but have also not been able to – or, in some sad cases, even wanted to – fully sever the umbilical cord to the day job (despite the fact that you are suddenly reading your work correspondence while dressed in pink swim shorts and little else – a look that even our most fashion-forward staff couldn’t get away with at Midori House).

In recent years, many countries have passed so-called “right-to-disconnect” laws to ensure that employees – even popes, I imagine – can ignore work-related emails while on their holidays. But for many folks, trying to totally disconnect, to put out of their minds what might be lurking in their ever-expanding inbox, is more anxiety-inducing than giving it a daily scrub-down. 

For many years, Monocle staff didn’t set up OOO messages. In the early days, when we were a fledgling brand with a tiny team, we worried about a commercial contact going elsewhere, a reporter with a great story not waiting around for our response. Now fully embraced, OOO notes have had no detrimental effects but their use is still a little haphazard because of people like me.

This weekend I leave the city for a couple of weeks. While there’s no castle involved or encyclical to write, I know that the line between my work and private lives blurred long ago and that I will also definitely want to file my column, check my mail, be a little on. In part, it’s because I remember a time before all of this, when I would return from long travels wondering whether my company was still afloat and my job still there.

Perhaps that’s the important bit. Vacations should be when you decide what makes the perfect cocktail of your time – is it a zero-per-cent-work concoction or something a little trickier to mix just right, a “holi-work special”? And here’s a line that a Protestant rarely types: I’m with the Pope on this (though I imagine that I might be having more real cocktails than him). Some writing, some downtime and some exercise will be just the ticket. But I can’t go along with Whatsapping in the middle of the night. Isn’t there a nun who can take away his phone at bedtime?

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