VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo XIV on Friday (Might 9) celebrated his first Mass within the Sistine Chapel the place he was elected less than 24 hours earlier and prayed that his historic papacy might help the Catholic Church be a beacon illuminating “the darkish nights of this world”.
Leo, the previous Cardinal Robert Prevost and the first US pope, appeared serene as he mentioned the Mass within the well-known, frescoed chapel with the identical cardinals who selected him to be the 267th pontiff and the successor to Pope Francis.
Wearing comparatively easy white and gold vestments, Leo, who was born in Chicago however spent twenty years as a missionary in Peru, mentioned just a few phrases in English earlier than persevering with his homily in fluent Italian. He painted the religious image of the Church he wish to see beneath his papacy.
“God has …. entrusted this treasure to me in order that, along with his assist, I could also be its trustworthy administrator for the sake of the complete mystical Physique of the Church,” he mentioned.
“He has carried out so so that she could also be ever extra totally a metropolis set on a hill, an ark of salvation crusing by the waters of historical past and a beacon that illumines the darkish nights of this world,” he added, in response to the official translation.
The 1.4 billion-member Church, was nice not due to “the magnificence of her buildings or the grandeur of her buildings … however fairly by the holiness of her members”.
