New dawn | Pope Leo XIV celebrates his first mass as pontiff in Sistine Chapel

Agencies Vatican City

Pope Leo XIV said he hoped to lead a Roman Catholic church “that illuminates the dark nights of this world” as he held his first mass as pontiff under Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.  The surprise election of Robert Francis Prevost, the first US pope, came after a conclave that lasted less than 26 hours, one of the shortest in modern Catholic history.

During Friday’s mass with cardinals, Leo began his homily in English, before switching to Italian. In the English passage he quoted words from the psalms, saying: “I will sing a new song to the Lord, because he has done marvels.”

“Not just with me,” he continued. “But with all of us, my brother cardinals, as we celebrate this morning, I invite you to recognise the marvels that the Lord has done, the blessings that the Lord continues to pour out upon all of us.” Switching to Italian, he said he hoped the church could “illuminate the dark nights of this world”. He said he would be a “faithful administrator” of the church, and that it should be judged by the holiness of its members and not “the grandeur of her buildings”.

In a later passage referring to evangelisation, Leo said there were many settings in which the Christian faith was considered “absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent. Settings where other securities are preferred, like technology, money, success, power, or pleasure.” He added: “These are contexts where it is not easy to preach the gospel and bear witness to its truth, where believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied.

Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed.” The pope and the 132 cardinals who elected him, from all over the world, will have lunch after the mass. The cardinals will then be free to return home. The Chicago-born Prevost, 69, has been living in Rome since 2023.