Leo XIV urged the Catholic Church to “desperately” counter a lack of faith in his first homily as pope Friday, a day after the modest cardinal largely unknown to the world become the first US head of the 2,000-year institution.
Chicago-born Robert Francis Prevost on Thursday became the 267th pope, spiritual leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics and successor to Argentina‘s Pope Francis, after a secret conclave by his fellow cardinals in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.
In today’s world, Leo warned in his homily to assembled cardinals, there are places or situations where “it is not easy to preach the Gospel and bear witness to its truth, where believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied”.
“Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed,” said the new pope, 69, standing at the Sistine Chapel altar with Michelangelo’s famed fresco of “The Last Judgment” behind him.
The former missionary deplored “settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent” and, in an echo of his predecessor Francis, said people were turning to “technology, money, success, power, or pleasure.”
“A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society,” said Leo in Italian, wearing a white papal robe trimmed in gold as he addressed the seated white-robed cardinals.
In an apparent message to evangelical Christians, Pope Leo also warned that Jesus cannot be “reduced to a kind of charismatic leader or superman”.
“This is true not only among non-believers but also among many baptised Christians, who thus end up living, at this level, in a state of practical atheism,” he said.
In an unscripted introduction to his homily in English, he also evoked a need to overcome divisions within the Church, telling his fellow cardinals: “I know I can rely on each and every one of you to walk with me”.
Many around the world were still digesting the choice of the man sometimes referred to in Rome as the “Latin Yankee” for his decades-long missions in Peru.
“A pope from the United States is almost more surprising than an Argentine and Jesuit pope,” such as Francis, wrote the Corriere della Sera daily. Francis was the first pope ever named from the Americas.
The Vatican released video images of the moments after Leo’s secret election Thursday, showing him praying at a chapel altar and shaking hands and receiving congratulations in a sea of scarlet-robed cardinals.
Tens of thousands of well-wishers had cheered Leo for his first appearance at the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica — despite many having no idea who the man before them was.
The American, a member of the Augustinian order who spent two decades in Peru and was only made a cardinal in 2023, had been on many Vatican watchers’ lists of potential popes, although he is far from being a globally recognised figure.
Over the coming days, including during Sunday’s midday Regina Coeli prayer and a meeting with journalists at the Vatican on Monday, his actions and words will be closely scrutinised.
Waiting outside St Peter’s Friday, Argentine tourist Rocio Arguello said “there were so many people from all over the world” who were riveted by Leo’s first appearance the day before, including throngs from Spanish-speaking countries.
“It was very moving when he also spoke in Spanish,” said the 39-year-old woman. “When he came out and spoke both languages, it was lovely.”
Back in Peru, well-wishers including the bishop of El Callao outside Lima, Luis Alberto Barrera, saluted the Augustinian’s engagement in the Andean country.
“He showed his closeness and simplicity with the people,” Barrera told AFP, calling the new pope a “good missionary”.
In Chicago, locals celebrated his love of baseball, deep-dish pizza and his working-class South Side neighbourhood in the United States’ third-largest city.
The Chicago Tribune called him “the pride and joy of every priest and nun” at his local parish, where he went to school and served as an altar boy, while a debate erupted over which of the city’s rival baseball teams Leo supported: the White Sox, his brother ultimately confirmed.
In his address to the crowds Thursday, Leo echoed his predecessor Francis with a call for peace and urging a “missionary Church”.
“Help us, and each other, to build bridges through dialogue, through encounter, to come together as one people, always in peace,” he said, as world leaders sent pledges to work with him on global issues at a time of great geopolitical uncertainty.
Leo faces a momentous task. As well as asserting his moral voice on a conflict-torn world stage, he must try to unite a divided Church and tackle burning issues such as the continued fallout from the clerical sexual abuse scandal.
As Cardinal Prevost, the new pope defended workers and the poor and reposted articles online critical of US President Donald Trump’s anti-migrant policies.
But Trump nevertheless welcomed his election, calling it a “great honour” to have a pope from the United States.
With the choice of Prevost, experts said, the cardinals had opted for continuity with the late Francis, a progressive who shook up the Church in his 12-year papacy.
Vatican watchers agreed that Prevost’s more soft-spoken style should help him as he faces turbulent times on the international stage, acting as a counterpoint to more divisive voices.
Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi told the Corriere della Sera that Leo was “a very simple person, intensely kind. He is in the vein of Francis, but less spiky”.
