Pope Leo XIV has celebrated his first mass as pontiff, presiding in the Sistine Chapel alongside the cardinals who elected him to succeed Pope Francis.
The first North American pope spoke in English at the mass held on Friday, local time.
He said he hoped that his election could help the Catholic Church bring light to the “dark nights of this world”.
Wearing white vestments, Leo processed into the Sistine Chapel and blessed the cardinals as he approached the altar and Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment behind it.
He delivered the opening prayers and hymns in Latin, and women read the initial scripture readings.
Addressing the cardinals in English, he said, “You have called me to carry the cross and to be blessed”, and asked for their help to spread the Catholic faith.
It was the first time Leo made public remarks in English, after he spoke in Italian and Spanish only in his first comments from the loggia of St Peter’s Basilica on Thursday.
Leo, the Chicago-born Augustinian missionary Robert Prevost, was elected on Thursday afternoon as the 267th pope, overcoming the traditional prohibition against a pope from the United States.
In his first appearance to the world Thursday evening, the 69-year-old wore the traditional red cape of the papacy — which Francis had eschewed on his election in 2013 — suggesting a return to some degree of rule-following after Francis’s unorthodox pontificate.
But, in naming himself Leo, after the 19th-century social justice reformer pope and referring to some of Francis’s priorities, the new pope could also have wanted to signal a strong line of continuity.
“Together, we must try to find out how to be a missionary church, a church that builds bridges, establishes dialogue, that’s always open to receive — like on this piazza with open arms — to be able to receive everybody that needs our charity, our presence, dialogue and love,” Leo said in near-perfect Italian in his first comments to the world.
The Sistine Chapel was full of Catholic faithful for the first mass.
What’s next for Leo?
In his first hours as pope, Leo went back to his old apartment in the Sant’Uffizio Palace to see colleagues, according to selfies posted to social media.
Vatican Media also showed him in the moments after his election praying at a kneeler in the Pauline Chapel before emerging on the loggia.
On Sunday, he is to deliver his first noon blessing from the loggia of St Peter’s and attend an audience with the media on Monday in the Vatican auditorium, Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said.
Beyond that, he has a possible first foreign trip at the end of May — Francis had been invited to travel to Türkiye to commemorate the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea.
The new pope was previously the leader of the Order of St Augustine.
The new pope was formerly the prior general, or leader, of the Order of St Augustine, which was formed in the 13th century as a community of “mendicant” friars — dedicated to poverty, service and evangelisation.
Vatican News said Leo is the first Augustinian pope.
In Peru, he is known as the saintly missionary who waded through mud after torrential rains flooded the region, bringing help to needy people.
“He has no problem fixing a broken-down truck until it runs,” said Janinna Sesa, who met Prevost while she worked for the church’s Caritas charity.
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