VATICAN CITY: Leo XIV urged the Catholic Church to work urgently to restore the faith of millions in his first homily as pope on Friday, a day after the little-known cardinal became the first head of the 2,000-year institution from the United States.

Chicago-born Robert Francis Prevost became the 267th pope, spiritual leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics and successor to Argentina’s Pope Francis on Thursday, after a secret vote by fellow cardinals in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.

In today’s world, Leo warned in his homily to assembled cardinals, there are places or situations 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,” said the new pope, 69, standing at the Sistine Chapel altar with Michelangelo’s famed fresco of The Last Judgement behind him.

The former missionary deplored “settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent”. And in an echo of his predecessor Francis, he said people were turning to “technology, money, success, power, or pleasure”.

‘Walk with me’

“A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society,” said Leo in Italian, wearing a white papal robe trimmed in gold as he addressed the seated white-robed cardinals.

In an apparent message to evangelical Christians, Pope Leo also warned that Jesus Christ cannot be “reduced to a kind of charismatic leader or superman”.

“This is true not only among non-believers but also among many baptised Christians, who thus end up living, at this level, in a state of practical atheism,” he said.

In an unscripted introduction to his homily in English, he also evoked a need to overcome divisions within the Church, telling his fellow cardinals:

“I know I can rely on each and every one of you to walk with me.”

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2025