Pope Leo XIV delivered his first homily on Friday morning since being elected to be the terrestrial head of the Catholic Church, emphasizing the challenge of leading people to Jesus in a world that often disparages the faith as “absurd” or “weak.”
Pope Leo XIV, previously Cardinal Robert F. Prevost Martinez, is the first pontiff born in the United States in the history of the church, which was founded by Jesus Christ and led by the Apostle Peter as its first pope following Jesus’s return to Heaven. He was chosen to succeed Pope Francis, who passed at the age of 88 on April 21.
The pope made his debut as the Bishop of Rome on Thursday in St. Peter’s Square, offering a brief message of gratitude following the appearance of white smoke over the Vatican, the traditional sign that the Conclave had chosen a new pope. In those remarks, he prayed for wisdom to lead and made reference to his time as the Bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, addressing his former parishioners in Spanish.
Pope Leo XIV led his first Mass as pontiff on Friday and used his homily to address the eternal challenge of missionary work in a world that often downplays the importance of faith and ridicules Christianity in particular. He opened the homily in his native English, the first time he had used the language in public following his ascent to the papacy.
Pope Leo suggested that many Christians have fallen into seeing Jesus as a form of “superman” and not the true son of God, diluting their faith and leading them to stray from its practice.
The pope spent much of the first half of the homily describing the struggles his predecessor, Peter, faced as he attempted to organize the Church and spread the faith around the world and Peter’s response to the question, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
“The question is not insignificant. It concerns an essential aspect of our ministry, namely, the world in which we live, with its limitations and its potential, its questions and its convictions,” Pope Leo posited.
Peter lived in a world, the pope explained, “that considers Jesus a completely insignificant person, at best someone with an unusual and striking way of speaking and acting.”
“And so, once his presence becomes irksome because of his demands for honesty and his stern moral requirements, this ‘world’ will not hesitate to reject and eliminate him,” he continued.
Ordinary people who followed Jesus, however, saw him as “an upright man, one who has courage, who speaks well and says the right things, like other great prophets in the history of Israel. … Yet to them he is only a man, and therefore, in times of danger, during his passion, they too abandon him and depart disappointed.”
“What is striking about these two attitudes is their relevance today,” he continued. “They embody notions that we could easily find on the lips of many men and women in our own time, even if, while essentially identical, they are expressed in different language.”
Throughout much of the world, Pope Leo explained, “there are many settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent. Settings where other securities are preferred, like technology, money, success, power, or pleasure.”
American Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost presides over his first Holy Mass as Pope Leo XIV with cardinals in the Sistine Chapel at the conclusion of the Conclave on May 09, 2025 in Vatican City, Vatican. ( Francesco Sforza Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images)
There, he added, “our missionary outreach is desperately needed,” as “a lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society.”
Among Christians, he added, like the “ordinary people” of Jesus’s time, many appreciate him as a man but reduce him “to a kind of charismatic leader or superman. This is true not only among non-believers but also among many baptized Christians, who thus end up living, at this level, in a state of practical atheism.”
“Therefore, it is essential that we too repeat, with Peter: ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,’” he concluded.
Pope Leo described his mission, and that of all Christians, as requiring the individual “to move aside so that Christ may remain, to make oneself small so that he may be known and glorified (cf. Jn 3:30), to spend oneself to the utmost so that all may have the opportunity to know and love him.”
The Vatican is scheduled to hold an inaugural Mass for Pope Leo XIV on May 18. This will follow a loaded schedule of meetings with Cardinals and other senior officials within Vatican City, a sovereign state, and press appearances. The Vatican’s Press Office added in its itinerary for the pontiff that he must also make time for “a certain amount of time for reflection, prayer, and dialogue” and this may affect the currently published schedule.
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