has officially begun his mandate this Sunday, with the start of the Pontificate, held at ten in the morning under a burning sun in the Plaza de San Pedro before 200,000 people, according to Vatican Fuentes, and delegations from 150 countries. Among them, the kings of Spain; the United States vice president, JD Vance; the Peruvian president, Dina Boluarte; President Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
This act is a moment of great symbolic importance, with echoes of the entire history of 2,000 years of the Church, the only surviving institution of the remote antiquity, although religions such as Buddhism or Judaism were born before. It is as if the succession of an Egyptian pharaoh or the Chinese emperor was still attended (dynasties that, although they have disappeared, in any case lasted longer). It is an act, that until 1963 with Paul VI was coronation, in which the words of the new Pontiff are measured with interest, because they suppose an intentions. , the term that most repeated the Peruano -American Robert Prevost was “Paz”, this morning has been “unity”, put an end to discord, in the world and in the Church, which has 1.4 billion faithful.
Leo XIV has asked for fraternity and reconciliation for an injured world “for hatred, violence, prejudices, fear of different, by an economic paradigm that exploits the resources of the earth and marginalizes the poorest.” “We want to be, within this mass, a small yeast of unity, communion and fraternity,” he said. That is why he has also called on unity in the Church, which has arrived very divided to the conclave after the years of changes and reforms of Francisco, and that, when choosing him, he has indicated a man of consensus and pacification. At the end of the Mass, the Pope made a brief more political speech in which he requested the end of violence in Gaza, where he recalled that “elders and children are reduced to hunger”, and requested “a fair and lasting peace” in “the martyred Ukraine.” The Holy See has confirmed that throughout the day Leo XIV will meet with Zelenski. It is still unconfirmed a meeting, this Sunday or tomorrow Monday, with Vance, in what would be the first contact of the American Pontiff with the Trump administration.
in the sense that love can preach out who does not give an example, aware that polarization and aggressiveness that stir the world have also sneaked into the Church. “This, brothers and sisters, I would like our first great desire: a united church, a sign of unity and communion, which becomes a ferment for a reconciled world,” he proclaimed. “Love and unity: These are the two dimensions of the mission that Jesus entrusted to Peter.”
His homily has constantly played with the idea of the pastor and has summarized his role as a bridge between factions, in the tension between tradition and reforms to adapt to today’s world. He explained that the pontiff must be “a shepherd capable of guarding the rich heritage of the Christian faith and, at the same time, of looking beyond to answer the questions, the concerns and the challenges of today.”
Left hand
Leo XIV has started with great left hand this work of remakeing wounds giving caresses to each side. For example, he has made a very explicit internal wink, which means endorsing a criticism of his predecessor, accused of the most conservative sector of acting excessively authoritarian and without consulting anyone: “Pedro must shepherd the flock without ever giving up to the temptation to be a lonely leader or a boss who is above others, becoming the owner of the people who have been entrusted to him.”
In a tone of humility, and he has been excited to say, he has confessed: “I have been chosen without any merit.” “With fear and tremor, I come to you as a brother who wants to make a servant of his faith and his joy, walking with you,” he said. He has indicated that “true authority is the charity of Christ.” “It is never about catching others through submission, with religious propaganda or with the means of power, but it is always and only to love as Jesus did,” he stressed. He pointed out that “the missionary spirit” must inspire the Church, “without locking ourselves in our small group or feel superior to the world.”
The truth is that Francisco’s critics are hosting with relief the return of solemnity, of a Pope who sings, and also in Latin, and that it seems that he will live again at the Apostolic Palace, 12 years after his predecessor abandoned him. Although there is still no official confirmation, the truth is that the apartment has been reopened and they have begun to paint it, repair leaks and reform it.
But on the other hand, the Pope has given a clear support to the complex road open by Francisco to share the Government of the Church with the base, including women and laity, through the Synod Assemblies, something that takes out the most traditional sectors, which they consider to “democratize” the Church and relativize the authority and teaching of the cardinals, as the elite of government. Leo XIV, Augustine who quotes St. Augustine, a philosopher who will probably now be reissued and reread, has paraphrased it with all the intention: “The Church consists of all those who are in Concord with the brothers and who love others.”
Mass bath
An hour before the start of the Mass, the Pope has starred in a significant preamble. At nine in the morning there has been its first return to the Plaza de San Pedro in the Papamóvil, and has also toured the great avenue of Via della Coniliazione. It is a mass bath that is normally done later, but in this Vatican world made of gestures has its importance: it is as if this Pope who has been a missionary would like to underline that before the ceremonies are people.
Then the solemn ceremony loaded with deep symbols began, with passages in Latin and Greek, the tongues that were spoken at the beginning of the Church. He began with the visit of the new Pope to the tomb of San Pedro, under the altar of the Vatican Basilica. He continued with the imposition of the canopy, a white wool stole, of blessed lambs and woven by the nuns of Santa Cecilia, in the Roman neighborhood of Trastévere. He continued with the delivery of the fisherman’s ring, at which time tears are almost skipped.
The Mass has been the last great event in this roller coaster of historical and mass days in the Vatican that is the period of vacant headquarters and the conclave. Many of the authorities that were at Francisco’s funeral, have seen again in the same place. This time Donald Trump has not come – in his place Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, both Catholics; Neither Javier Milei, nor Inazio Lula da Silva. They have come, and they were not the other time, German Prime Minister Friedrich Merz and the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, a country that ended up very faced with Francisco and only sent his funeral to his funeral to the ambassador to the Holy See.
After the ceremony at noon, after two hours, the Pope greeted the guests of foreign delegations one by one. Felipe VI entertained him in one of the longest conversations. Now there is only one last act at all protocol of the beginning of the pontificate, next Sunday. It is the inauguration of the Basilica of San Juan de Letrán, because the Pope is also a bishop of Rome and that is the city’s cathedral. Actually, it is in this place where the apostolic palace and the residence of the popes were born and remained until the construction of the Vatican. But the pontiffs, after being consecrated in San Pedro, always go to San Juan de Letán to follow tradition. Then the mandate of Leo XIV will begin, which for his age, 69, will probably be long. You may have to wait many years, decades, to see a ceremony like this Sunday.
