Pope Leo XIV, on Friday, May 9, 2025, prayed that his historic papacy can help the Catholic Church be a beacon illuminating “the dark nights of this world”
Leo prayed while celebrating his first Mass in the Sistine Chapel in Vatican where he was elected less than 24 hours earlier.
Leo, the former Cardinal Robert Prevost and the first U.S. pope, looked serene as he said the Mass in the famous, frescoed chapel with the same cardinals who chose him to be the 267th pontiff and the successor to Pope Francis.
Dressed in relatively simple white and gold vestments, Leo, who was born in Chicago but spent two decades as a missionary in Peru, said a few words in English before continuing his homily in fluent Italian.
He painted the spiritual picture of the Church he would like to see under his papacy.
Pope Leo said: “God has entrusted this treasure to me so that, with his help, I may be its faithful administrator for the sake of the entire mystical Body of the Church.
Pope Leo celebrates first Mass in Vatican
“He has done so in order that she may be ever more fully a city set on a hill, an ark of salvation sailing through the waters of history and a beacon that illumines the dark nights of this world.”
Leo added that the 1.4 billion-member Church was great not because of “the magnificence of her structures or the grandeur of her building but rather through the holiness of her members.”
Leo, aged 69, was elected at the end of a swift two-day conclave that was wrapped up on Thursday evening when white smoke billowed from the chimney on the chapel.
Before his election, U.S. cardinals had largely been written off as papal contenders because of a widespread assumption that the global Church could not be run by a superpower pope, Reuters reported.
However, he also holds Peruvian citizenship, meaning that he has deep knowledge of both the West and less developed nations.
After the Mass, Leo will have lunch with the cardinals who elected him and they will then be free to leave the Vatican and return to their homes around the world.
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