The Catholic community is alive, beautiful and strong, and it is up to its pastors to protect and nourish the faithful and to help bring God’s hope to the whole world, Pope Leo XIV said.

Pope Leo XVI will officially inaugurate his papacy with Mass in St. Peter’s Square May 18.

Where Christians are “mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied” is where the Catholic Church’s “missionary outreach is most desperately needed,” Pope Leo XIV said in his first homily as leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.

Full text of the first public homily of Pope Leo XIV, given at a Mass for the College of Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel May 9, 2025.

The head of the Midwestern Augustinian province that Pope Leo XIV once led called the new pope’s election “moment of profound significance — not only as the first pope from the United States, but also as the first Augustinian to be elected pontiff.”

Key dates in the life and ministry of Pope Leo XIV, elected May 8, 2025, as the 266th successor to St. Peter.

Pope Leo, 69, formerly Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, is the first pope from the United States. He assumes the chair of Peter with multifaceted leadership experience: He grew up in the Midwest, graduated from Augustinian-run Villanova University in 1977 with a math degree, ministered as a bishop in Peru, and led the Vatican dicastery that helps appoint, form and retire bishops.

Many of the approximately 100 people who gathered at a cathedral adorned with yellow and white papal bunting expressed shock at the election of an American pope. But there was also a sense of excitement.

President Donald Trump on May 8 congratulated Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, the Chicago-born prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops under Pope Francis, who was elected the 267th pope the same day, taking the name Pope Leo XIV.

Even before he stepped out on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica and spoke May 8, Pope Leo XIV’s choice of a name was a powerful statement.