Pope Leo XIV called for authentic peace and fair Ukraine and an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, In his first blessing on Sunday noon as a pontiff who presented symbolic gestures suggesting a message of unity in a polarized Catholic church.
“Me too, I answered the great powers of the world by repeating the omnipresent call` Never Again War ”, said Leo of the Loggia of the Saint-Pierre basilica to around 100,000 people below.
It was the first time that Leo had returned to Loggia since his appearance for the first time in the world Thursday evening following his remarkable election as a Pope, the first in the United States. Then he also delivered a message of peace.
Leo took the papal tradition to offer a blessing from Sunday to noon, but with some twists and turns. While his predecessors delivered the greeting of the Studio window of the Apostolic Palace, on the side of the Piazza, Leo went to the very center of the place and the heart of the church.
He also offered a novelty by singing the prayer of Regina Caeli, said a Latin prayer during the Easter season that recent popes generally recited.
The traditionalists and the conservatives, many of whom felt alienated by Pope Francis reforms and the loose liturgical style, have sought gestures alluding to Leo’s priorities. Some expressed at least a cautious optimism with a return to a traditional style that Leo exhibited Thursday evening, when he wore the official red cape of the papacy that Francis had avoided.
Sunday, on the square, the first prayer of Leo de Leo, were two of the most conservative in Europe, the Marine Le Pen and the Matteo Salvini of Italy. The Italian minister underlined his Catholic faith in his political mailbox.
Sunday, Leo wore the simple white strain of the papacy and had returned to carry his silver pectoral cross. He had carried a plus adorned which contains the relics of Saint-Augustin and his mother, St. Monica, Thursday evening which had been given to him by her Augustinian religious order.
“ Beloved Ukrainian people ”
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Leo quoted Pope Francis by denouncing the number of conflicts ravaging the globe today, saying that it was a “world war in pieces”.
“I carry in my heart the sufferings of the beloved Ukrainian people,” he said. “Let everything done to make an authentic, fair and lasting peace as soon as possible.”
He called for the liberation of prisoners of war and the return of Ukrainian children to their families and praised the ceasefire between India and Pakistan.
He also called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and humanitarian aid to provide the “exhausted civilian population and all hostages are released”.
Leo also noted that Sunday was Mother’s Day in many countries and wished all mothers, “including those of paradise” a good Mother’s Day.
The crowd, filled with fanfares in town for a special jubilee weekend, broke out in applause and music while the bells of the Saint-Pierre basilica were in seeds.
Angela Gentile de Bari arrived on the square three hours earlier to be in place. Drown that the cardinals elected another non -Italian pope, she said that she was happy that Leo came on the central balcony of the basilica, so that the crowd could see him face to face. “What is good for the Holy Spirit works for me,” she said. “I trust.”
More than 50 pilgrims of Houston, Texas, were also in the square, waving three large American flags. They were in Rome during a pilgrimage of the pre-Planified Holy Year and said they were proud to be part of this historic opportunity.
“Words cannot express my admiration and gratitude to God,” said Reverend Dominic Nguyen, who led the Vietnamese American group. He said that he hoped that the pope would be happy to see the stars and stripes, but also the Peruvian flags and all the other countries, showing the universality of the Church.
A mass in the caves and disappoint the apartment
Also Sunday, Leo celebrated a private mass near the tomb of Saint-Pierre and prayed on the tombs of several popes passed in the caves under the basilica. The Vatican media filmed it by praying in front of a mixture of more progressive and traditional popes: Pope Paul VI, which closed the modernization reforms of the second Vatican of the 1960s, and the Pius XII and Benoît XVI popes, at the more conservative end of the spectrum.
He celebrated the mass with the head of his Augustinian order And his brother, John, in the benches. In his homily, he recalled that Sunday was also the day when the Catholic Church celebrates religious vocations, and noted that the question of declining vocations had been raised by the cardinals in their pre-contact discussions before its election.
Leo said priests can encourage more vocations by offering a good example: “Living the joy of the Gospel, not to discourage others, but rather seeking ways to encourage young people to hear the voice of the Lord and follow it and serve it in the Church.”
Leo also attended the official disappointing the papal apartments in the apostolic palace, which were sealed after the death of Pope Francis on April 21. It is not clear if Leo will move in the apartments or will simply use them for a formal audience as Francis has done. Leo has slept in his old apartment in a Vatican palazzo since his election.
Thursday, the missionary born in Chicago, 69, was elected 267th Pope. He has a week in charge of public before his official installation mass next Sunday.
Leo, former Robert Prevost, spent most of his priestly life as a missionary and then bishop in Peru, an experience he recalled Thursday evening by offering a special greeting to his former diocese in Chiclayo in Spanish.
Bertha Santander from Peru came five hours earlier on Sunday to deploy his huge Peruvian flag in piazza, recalling the emotion of that night when piazza broke into cheers while Leo appeared for the first time.
“It’s such a happiness,” she said. “Already when I heard the last name, I started to cry and when he tackled a greeting in Spanish, I was a sea of tears,” she said.