Pope Leo XIV officially opened his pontificate as history’s first American pope on Sunday, presiding over an inaugural Mass in St Peter’s Square.
The ceremony – before tens of thousands of people, presidents, patriarchs and princes blended – ancient ritual, evocative symbols and a nod to modern-day celebrity.
President Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina travelled to Rome to attend the Mass.
“It is my sincere hope that under Pope Leo’s leadership, the Holy See will continue to play a central role in promoting global solidarity, addressing the pressing issues of poverty, inequality, conflict, and climate change – challenges that transcend borders and demand collective action from the international community,” said Mr Higgins before the Mass.
Leo opened the celebration by taking his first popemobile tour through the piazza, a rite of passage that has become synonymous with the papacy’s global reach and mediatic draw, used at home and abroad to bring popes close to their flock.
The 69-year-old former Augustinian missionary smiled and waved from the back of the vehicle as the bells of St Peter’s Basilica rang.
Leo appeared to choke up when the two potent symbols of the papacy were placed on him – the pallium wool stole over his shoulders and the fisherman’s ring on his finger.
He turned his hand to look at the ring and seal and then clasped his hands in front of him in prayer.
The crowd cheered and plenty of Peruvian, American and Holy See flags mixed with flags of other nations and banners.
The open-topped popemoble was surrounded by more than a dozen security guards as it drove through the square and down the long boulevard that leads to the Tiber River, for the pope’s first ride in the vehicle.
The vehicle moved quickly, but briefly stopped twice so Leo could bless three babies.
Tens of thousands of people had earlier streamed into St Peter’s Square. Starting at dawn, civil protection crews in neon uniforms funnelled pilgrims into quadrants in the piazza while priests and patriarchs hurried into St Peter’s Basilica to get ready for the Mass.
US vice-president JD Vance, one of the last foreign officials to see Pope Francis before he died, paid his respects at the Argentinian pope’s tomb when he arrived in Rome late on Saturday, and was heading the US delegation honouring Chicago-born Leo.
Later, Mr Vance and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy met for the first time since their White House spat, smiling and shaking hands at the Vatican on Sunday.
Peruvian president Dina Boluarte was also among about a dozen heads of state attending.
Diplomatic protocol also dictated the dress code. While most wore black, the handful of Catholic queens and princesses – Charlene of Monaco and Letizia of Spain among others – wore white in a special privilege allowed them.
Three dozen of the world’s other Christian churches sent their own delegations, headed by patriarchs, reverends, ministers and metropolitans, while the Jewish community had a 13-member delegation, half of them rabbis.
After the tour in the square, Leo went into the basilica to begin the solemn ceremony to inaugurate his ministry in a series of rites that emphasise the service that he is called to perform in leading the Catholic Church.
He prayed first at the tomb of St Peter, considered to be the first pope, under the basilica’s main altar, and then processed out into the piazza for the Mass.
During the Mass, Leo received the two potent symbols of the papacy: the lambswool stole, known as a pallium, and the fisherman’s ring.
The pallium, draped across his shoulders, symbolises the pastor carrying his flock as the pope carries the faithful.
The ring, which becomes Leo’s official seal, harks back to Jesus’ call to the apostle Peter to cast his fishing nets.
The other symbolically important moment of the Mass is the representational rite of obedience to Leo.
Whereas in the past all cardinals would vow obedience to the new pope, more recent papal installations involve representatives of cardinals, bishops, priests, deacons, nuns, ma
rried couples and young people participating in the rite.
Another change from the past is that Sunday’s Mass is not a coronation ceremony, which used to involve the pope receiving a tiara, but is merely known as a “Eucharistic Celebration for the start of the Petrine ministry of the Bishop of Rome”.
After the homily and at the end of the Mass, Leo will offer a final blessing and then go into the basilica to greet the heads of the more than 150 official delegations attending.
Security was tight, and Rome authorities planned for 250,000 people on Sunday.
The Chicago-born cardinal Robert Prevost (69) was elected to succeed the late Pope Francis earlier this month after a conclave that lasted less than 26 hours.
Before being elected as pope, the then-cardinal criticised Donald Trump’s administration in several posts on his X account, mainly targeting the government over its policies on immigration.
In February he also shared on X an op-ed published in the National Catholic Reporter titled: JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others, after comments Mr Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, made in an interview on Fox News.
The Vatican has not confirmed or denied whether the social media posts were authentic. Mr Vance and Mr Trump also clashed with Pope Francis over immigration.
In the days since his historic election, Leo has already sketched out some of his key priorities as pope.
In his first foreign policy address, he said the Holy See’s three pillars of diplomacy were peace, justice and truth.
In his first major economics address, he emphasised the Catholic Church’s social doctrine and the search for truth.
Leo has vowed all efforts to find peaceful ends to the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere.
But as a priority, he has also identified the challenges to humanity posed by artificial intelligence, making the parallel to the challenges to human dignity posed by the industrial revolution that were confronted by his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, who was pope from 1878-1903.– Agencies
