Pope Leo XIV laments loss of faith in his first sermon

In his first service as Pope, Leo XIV lamented the "dramatic side effects" of a lack of faith. The meaning of life was being lost, mercy was being forgotten and human dignity was being "violated in the most dramatic ways", said the newly elected head of the Church. He spoke in a sermon to the College of Cardinals on Friday during a service in the Sistine Chapel. He went on to mention "the crisis of the family and many other wounds from which our society suffers in no small measure".

Robert Francis Prevost (69) was elected the 267th head of around 1.4 billion Catholics on Thursday. The long-time head of the Augustinian Order is the first native-born American to hold the office of Pope. He also has Peruvian citizenship because he was a bishop in Peru for nine years. Like his predecessor Francis, who made him head of the Vatican dicastery for the appointment of bishops in 2023, the new pope wore plain black leather shoes during the liturgy.

First words as pope in English

At the beginning of his sermon, Leo XIV spoke a few words in English for the first time since his election and reminded the cardinals of the miracles and gifts of God. "You have called me to carry this cross and fulfil this mission," said the Pope. He said that he knew he could rely on every cardinal.

Leo XIV went on to address the challenging situation for Christians worldwide. "Today, the Christian faith is seen in many cases as something absurd, as something for weak and less intelligent people; other securities such as technology, money, success, power and pleasure are often favoured."

Jesus as a superhuman

Believers are sometimes "mocked, fought against, despised or at best tolerated and pitied", while Jesus is seen as a kind of "charismatic leader or superman", not only by non-believers, but also by many baptised people, who end up falling into de facto atheism. However, each individual was called upon, as Pope Francis had often taught, to bear witness to a joyful faith in Christ, Leo XIV emphasised, adding that this also applied to the Church as a whole.

As the successor of Peter, he was called to preside over the whole Church in love, said Leo XIV, adding that he wanted to make himself small in office in order to place Christ in the foreground. As a faithful steward, he wanted to make the Church more and more into a city on a hill, "a saving ark that steers through the waves of history, a lighthouse that lights up the nights of the world". It achieves this not so much through the grandeur of its structures or the splendour of its buildings, but through the holiness of the members of the people of God. (KNA)