Pope Leo XIV indicated on Saturday that his papacy will follow closely in the footsteps of the late Pope Francis, telling church cardinals that they should take up that “precious legacy” and identifying artificial intelligence as a main challenge for working people and “human dignity.”
Pope Leo, born in Chicago as Robert Prevost, was elected Thursday, becoming the first US-born pope to the surprise and delight of many Catholics across the Americas.
In his first formal meeting with cardinals, which began with a standing ovation, the new pontiff said he chose his papal name to continue down the path of Pope Leo XIII, who addressed “the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution.”
Pope Leo XIII ruled the Roman Catholic Church from 1878 until his death in 1903 and is remembered as a pope of Catholic social teaching. He wrote a famous open letter to all Catholics in 1891, called “Rerum Novarum” (“Of Revolutionary Change”), which reflected on the destruction wrought by the Industrial Revolution on the lives of workers.
“In our own day, the church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor,” the new American pontiff said Saturday, speaking in fluent Italian.
Wearing the white robes of the papacy, he strongly signaled to the cardinals that his leadership will build upon Pope Francis’ church reforms and legacy of social justice.
“It has been clearly seen in the example of so many of my predecessors, and most recently by Pope Francis himself, with his example of complete dedication to service and to sober simplicity of life, his abandonment to God throughout his ministry and his serene trust at the moment of his return to the Father’s house,” Pope Leo told the gathering. “Let us take up this precious legacy and continue on the journey, inspired by the same hope that is born of faith.”
He went on to ask the other senior church leaders to renew their commitment to the pivotal Second Vatican Council, which enacted sweeping church reforms in the 1960s. The modernizing reforms included allowing Mass to be celebrated in local languages rather than Latin for the first time.
Setting out that vision on Saturday, Leo said the church should be guided by a missionary focus, “growth in collegiality and synodality,” courageous dialogue with the contemporary world and “loving care for the least and the rejected.”
He also suggested that he will approach the weighty office with humility and fraternity.
“You, dear cardinals, are the closest collaborators of the pope. This has proved a great comfort to me in accepting a yoke clearly far beyond my own limited powers, as it would be for any of us,” Leo added.
“Your presence reminds me that the Lord, who has entrusted me with this mission, will not leave me alone in bearing its responsibility,” he said, also specifically thanking Dean of the College of Cardinals Giovanni Battista Re and the Camerlengo Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell, who was responsible for shepherding the church through the papal transition.
Pope Leo will appear on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica for a second time on Sunday to greet crowds of people in the square below. His installation Mass will take place the following week on Sunday, May 18.