Pope Leo XIV greeted the world for the first time on Thursday with the words “Peace be with you all.”
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The 69-year-old new pope, formerly Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, was elected the first pope from the United States on Thursday. A native of Chicago, Leo spoke in Italian from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, addressing the hundreds of thousands of people waiting in the square and streets below.
“Peace be with you all. Dearest brothers and sisters, this is the first greeting of the risen Christ, the Good Shepherd, who has given his life for God’s flock. I too would like that this greeting of peace enters into your heart, reaching your families, and all people, wherever they are, to all peoples, to all the earth. Peace be with you,” Leo said in his opening lines.
The identity of the new pope was announced just over an hour after white smoke billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. The cardinal electors watched from balconies flanking the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica as Cardinal Dominique Mamberti declared in Latin: “Habemus papam!”
Minutes later, Pope Leo XIV appeared to enormous cheers from the excited crowd.
The peace of the risen Christ, he said, is a “disarming, humble, and persevering peace” that comes from God — a God who “loves us all unconditionally.”
He recalled his predecessor, the late Pope Francis, who blessed Rome on Easter Sunday just hours before his death. “Allow me,” Leo said, “to follow that same blessing.”
“God loves us, God loves all of us, and evil will not prevail. We are all in the hands of God. Therefore, without fear, united, hand in hand with God and among ourselves, let us go forward. We are disciples of Christ. Christ precedes us. The world needs his light. Humanity needs him like a bridge to be reached by God and his love,” Leo said.
The pope asked those present to help the Church to build bridges through dialogue and encounter, working for unity and peace. He thanked Pope Francis and the cardinals who chose him to be the successor of St. Peter, history’s first pope.
The pope added that he wants to “walk together … as a united Church, always searching for peace, justice, and trying to always work as men and women faithful to Jesus Christ, without fear to proclaim the Gospel, to be missionaries.”
Pointing out that he is a member of the Augustinian religious order, Leo paraphrased the words of his founder, St. Augustine, who once said in a sermon: “With you I am a Christian and for you I am a bishop.”
In a special greeting to the Catholic Church of Rome, of which he is bishop, Leo said: “We must learn together how to be a missionary Church, a Church that builds bridges, dialogue, always open to receive, like this square with its ‘arms’ open to all, everyone who sees our charity, our presence, dialogue, love.”
Breaking off from Italian into Spanish, the pope greeted the people of the Diocese of Chiclayo in Peru, where he was bishop from 2015 until Pope Francis brought him to the Vatican as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops in 2023.
Speaking again in Italian, the pope said the faithful want “a synodal Church, one that looks always for peace, for charity, and to be close to those who suffer.”
Recalling the day’s feast day of Our Lady of Pompei, Pope Leo invited those present to pray a Hail Mary with him “for this new mission, but for the whole Church, for peace in the world.”
After the prayer asking for the intercession of the Virgin Mary, the new pope then bestowed his first apostolic blessing, “urbi et orbi,” on the city and the world.
This article was originally published on CNA.
