Pope Leo XIV has celebrated his first mass as head of the Catholic Church.
The new Pope led a private gathering for cardinals in the Sistine Chapel on Friday to mark his first mass.
According to the Vatican, US-born Robert Francis Prevost will deliver his much-anticipated first homily as pontiff.
Prevost became, on Thursday, the 267th pope, spiritual leader to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, after a secret conclave by his fellow cardinals in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.
Many well-wishers cheered Leo as he appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica on Thursday evening, with many having no idea who the modest man before them was.
The American, who spent two decades in Peru and was only made a cardinal in 2023, had reportedly been on many Vatican watchers’ lists of potential popes, although he is far from being a globally recognized figure.
Over the coming days, from Friday’s mass to Sunday’s midday Regina Coeli prayer and a meeting with journalists at the Vatican on Monday, the actions and words of Leo will be closely scrutinized.
Across the globe in Peru, well-wishers including the bishop of El Callao outside Lima, Luis Alberto Barrera, saluted the Augustinian’s engagement in the Andean country.
“He showed his closeness and simplicity with the people. He was a very simple person who adapted to everything, like any good missionary,” Barrera said.
In Chicago, locals celebrated his love of baseball, deep-dish pizza, and his working-class South Side neighborhood in the United States’ third-largest city.
The Chicago Tribune called him “the pride and joy of every priest and nun” at his local parish, where he went to school and served as an altar boy.
