The world met the new Pope. Cardinals agreed that he would be an American with an experience from Peru. A religious from the “begging” order of Augustinians, with an academic experience of a church lawyer. Last time he held the post of chief of the Vatican Dicaster for Bishops. Previously, he was himself a bishop in one of the Latin American dioceses in Peru.
“Peace you!” His first words to turn to the world. They sounded on the day when the world commemorated the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, the new Pope recalled that it was “the first greeting of the resurrected Christ who laid his life” for his own. His peace is according to Leo XIV. “Unarmed” and “disarming”.
He was born in the United States in Chicago, but survived much of his life as a missionary in South America – Peru. He studied mathematics and philosophy. Later, the theology with a specialization in church law, which he also lectured. Pope Francis withdrew him to Rome, where he was put on the head of the dicaster for bishops. He was appointed as Cardinal in 2023.
“Evil will not win,” the new Pope spoke only shortly after his election. He came to him in the fourth vote of the cardinals, ie quite quickly. The shorter election was only in March 1939, from which it came on the eve of the war Pius XII. Four screws were enough for the election of Benedict XVI. in 2005. Bergoglio needed one more round more for the two -thirds majority.
Such a quick choice used to indicate the coincidence of cardinals on one of the favorites. However, the Cardinal Premost was in serious diaries with good Vatican sources led rather than outsider.
Was the answer of the cardinals to the call of their dean, a 91-year-old Giovanni Battistu Re, who in a speech to Mass For choosing the Pope Pontiff talked about the Pope whose“The Church and all of humanity need history in this difficult and difficult moment”?
“I would like this greeting of peace to penetrate your hearts, families, to all the people, to all the nations, to the whole of the country,” the new Pope grew people from the Balcony of the Vatican Basilica. He spoke of bridges that need to be built by dialogue and meeting.
By reference to the “Synodal Church”, which is “moving and constantly seeking peace, love and proximity to the needy” bridged the inheritance of his predecessor Francis.
“It is a pope of peace and reconciliation,” says the Catholic priest Juraj Vittek. “The man with whom continuity comes, whether with what Pope Francis, but also his predecessors left us,” he adds.
The last Pope with this name was the Lion XIII, also known as the “Pope of Workers”. With his encyclical Rerum Novarum from 1891, he addressed the problems of early capitalism: labor, capital rights, rights of workers or fair property. The new Pope has not explained why he chose the name of the Lion.
What will be his first steps? Already last night he greeted his neighbors in Palazzo Dell’ufizzio, where he used to be. This morning it will have a mass with the Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel. On Sunday, the Vatican confirmed his participation in the midday prayer of Regina Coeli and Monday is to meet journalists.
Lion XIV. – Pope of peace. The Pope, who needs this restless time, says Daniel Černý, director of the Slovak Institute of History in Rome. (video)
