How Will Pope Leo Lead? First Days May Provide Clues For Him
How Will Pope Leo Lead? After receiving customers from the balcony whose view faces the mass in St Peter’s Square on Thursday evening, Pope Leo XIV returned to Sant’ Sant’Uffizio Palace, where he had been staying for the past two months.
He was welcomed by a jubilant mob of staff and former colleagues who reached out to shake his hand and applaud him.
A Bible was to be blessed and signed by a little girl. Of course, I should test my new signature, Pope Leo said, smiling and laughing. “The old one does not function any longer”.
A couple of hours or so later he was eminent as pope Robert Francis Prevost. After he took the name Leo XIV a new life began for the 69 year old cardian from chicage.
News about how Pope Leo will guide the Catholic Church is also scanty, and in the coming days and weeks, every detail from what he will wear to his accommodation bookings will be picked apart.
The scoring began the second he stepped on the balcony in NY, and in such a way, people got a chance to see what costumes he selected for his first step off.
His gold cross hanging about his neck, which would capture the last light of the day, was the first step out of the ancestors’ simplicity: the silver pendant that he wore had fallen out, the embroidered stole, and red mozzetta were icing on the cake to confirm that impression.
The latter one that he issued to cardinals in the Sistine Chapel Friday morning was scripted – not improvised, and this also sent out a message: “Austen Ivereigh, a Catholic writer and commentator, said, “Leo will be more closely aligned to tradition than Francis was”.
But over the next few days and weeks a series of events will provide Pope Leo with a further opportunity to outline the agenda of his pontificate.
On Monday he will hold an audience with the media and on 18 May he will celebrate a solemn inaugural mass in St Peter’s Square.
Among that mass will be delivered a homily before the many heads of state and dignitaries.
In his inaugural homily of 2013, Pope Francis asked “all those who have positions of responsibility in economic, political and social life” to be “protectors of creation, of God’s plan… of one another and the environment”.
So such a moment may have also given hints on what is most cherishing to the heart of Pope Leo.
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The accommodation of the new Pope will also be important.
Francis chose a humble Casa Santa Marta guesthouse, which everyone found revolutionary, while Leo may well follow practically all his predecessors into the prestigious Apostolic Palace.
He was elected less than one day ago. Let’s give him time to decide,” said Vatican sources who were reported in Italian media.
“All these are relevant decisions,” Ivereigh added.
“We’ll learn about it more and more each few days – the first week of the pontificate is continual revelation”.
Meanwhile, as if by draining away the specifics of his future as Leo XIV, scraps of the Pope’s former life as Robert Prevost are effulging from across the planet.
This is extremely so as his native land, Chicago, and adopted fatherland, Peru, where he took citizenship in 2015, it is.
In a photo, he has a big handmade birthday card written in Spanish with cakes and balloons around, laid out in front of him.
A video he made just before leaving for Rome from Peru in which he admits to himself missing the “joy” of Peru and its local foods, like ceviche, has been highlighted by South America’s social media users.
“The pope is Peruvian; God loves Peru, ” said Peruvian President Dina Boluarte.
American tourists on the pavements of St Peter’s Square the day after the elections were more becalmed, a touch frazzled by the news that the new Pope was from the US.
“I’m still astonished that they chose an American, anyway,” said Kerry, the Chicago native, who was in Rome for her honeymoon.
She admitted that she wasn’t really aware of too much about the new Pope, but was glad there are rumours that he is a fan of the White Sox baseball team.
Upon being told how Pope leo feels these days, she laughed. “He has got to be absolutely overloaded; I’m sure he didn’t sleep a wink!
Her husband, Josep, agreed: “When you are elected Pope, you arrive here as a cardinal for the conclave and that never returns the state it once was”, he said.
But he felt the new Pope “was a man of confidence, prayer and humility”.
“I only hope he lets the world see what it can imply to be a Godly man.
The newly-weds photographed themselves with the day’s newspapers, strolled off into St. Peter’s Square amid new spring sunshine.
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