The pontificate of Pope begins under the sign of continuity but also of listening Leo XIV. The new pontiff, already cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, met today the members of the Cardinals College for a first official greeting. A speech full of gratitude, awareness and vision, pronounced with a mild but firm tone, in which he announced the desire to continue on the road traced by the Second Vatican Council, strongly recalling the legacy of Pope Francis. There was a clear reference to times that change. The new Pope clarified the reason for the choice of the name Leone XIV: «Pope Leo XIII, with the Rerum novarumfaced the social question in the first industrial revolution; Today the Church is called to respond to the new revolutions – digital, technological, robotic – offering its heritage of social doctrine to defend human dignity». A clear and prophetic position in front of Artificial intelligence, gig economy, inequalities which multiply in silence. Words that sound like an appeal not to be surprised by the future but a govern it with the light of the Gospel.
Finally, the meeting ended with an opening to the internal dialogue: after the speech, the pontiff invited the cardinals to one Franca and concrete sharing On suggestions and proposals for the future journey. A sign of authentic and non -formal collegiality. Leone XIV wanted to close by making Paul VI’s words at the beginning of his pontificate, in 1963: «Pass throughout the world as a great flame of faith and love that turns on all men of good will». A hope that knows of a spiritual and civil program together, and which suggests an open pontificate, determined and deeply rooted in the living tradition of the Church.
Here is his full speech
In the first part of this meeting there is a small speech with the reflections that I would like to share with you. But then there will be a second part, a bit like the experience that many of you have asked for, of a kind of sharing with the Cardinals College in order to feel what advice, suggestions, proposals, very concrete things, of which there has already been a bit in the days before the conclave. Cardinal brothers! I greet and thank all of you for this meeting and for the days that preceded him, painful for the loss of the Holy Father Francesco, demanding for the responsibilities faced together and at the same time, according to the promise that Jesus himself made us, full of grace and consolation in the spirit (cf. Jn 14:25-27). You, dear cardinals, are the closest collaborators of the Pope, and this is of great comfort in accepting a yoke clearly far superior to my strength, as to those of anyone. Your presence reminds me that the Lord, who entrusted me to me this mission, does not leave me only in bringing his responsibility. I know first of all that I can always count, always on his help, the help of the Lord, and, for his grace and providence, on your closeness and of many brothers and sisters who believing in God all over the world, love the Church and support the vicar of Christ with the prayer and with good works. I thank the dean of the Cardinal College, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re – deserves an applause, at least one if not more – whose wisdom, the result of a long life and many years of faithful service to the Apostolic See, has helped us a lot in this time.
I thank the chamberlain of Santa Romana Chiesa, Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell – I believe it is present here -, for the precious and demanding role he has played over time of the vacant office and the convocation of the conclave. I also address my thoughts to the cardinal brothers who, for health reasons, could not be present and with you I hold on them in communion of affection and prayer. At this moment, at a sad and happy time, providentially wrapped in the light of Easter, I would like us to look together with the departure of the late Holy Father Francesco and the conclave as at an Easter event, a stage of the long exodus through which the Lord continues to guide us towards the fullness of life; And in this perspective we entrust to the “merciful father and God of every consolation” (2cor 1,3) the soul of the deceased Pope and also the future of the Church. The Pope, starting with St. Peter and up to me, his unworthy successor, is a humble servant of God and the brothers, for this other than this. The examples of so many predecessors showed him well, lastly that of Pope Francis himself, with his style of full dedication in the service and sober essentiality in life, of abandonment in God in the time of the mission and serene trust at the time of the return to the father’s house. We collect this precious inheritance and resume the path, animated by the same hope that comes from faith. He is the Risen, present in the midst of us, who protects and guides the Church and who continues to revive it in hope, through love “poured into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (RM 5.5). We are entitled to doing ourselves docile listeners of his voice and faithful ministers of his drawings of salvation, remembering that God loves to communicate himself, rather than in the roar of thunder and the earthquake, in the “whisper of a light breeze” (1re 19:12) or, as some translate, into a “subtle voice of silence”. This is the important encounter, not to be missed, and to be educated and accompanied the whole Holy People of God who is entrusted to us. In recent days, we have been able to see the beauty and feel the strength of this immense community, which with much affection and devotion greeted and cried his shepherd, accompanying him with faith and prayer at the time of his definitive encounter with the Lord.
We have seen what is the true greatness of the Church, which lives in the variety of its members united to the only leader, Christ, “shepherd and custodian” (1pt 2,25) of our souls. It is the womb from which we have also been generated and at the same time the flock (cf. Jn 21,15-17), the field (cf. Mk 4,1-20) that is given to us because we take care of it and cultivate it, we feed it with the sacraments of salvation and we fertilize it with the seed of the word, so that, solid in the concord and enthusiastic in the mission, walk, as already the Israelites in the desert, In the shade of the cloud and in the light of the fire of God (see Ex 13:21). And in this regard, I would like together, today, we renewed our full adhesion, in this journey, to the way that for decades for decades the universal Church has been traveling in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Pope Francis recalled and masterfully updated the contents in the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, of which I want to underline some fundamental instances: the return to the primacy of Christ in the announcement (see n. 11); the missionary conversion of the whole Christian community (see n. 9); growth in collegiality and synodality (cf. n. 33); Attention to the sensus fidei (cf. nn. 119-120), especially in its more and inclusive forms, such as popular piety (cf. n. 123); the loving care of the last, and of the discarded (cf. n. 53); The brave and confident dialogue with the contemporary world in its various components and reality (cf. n. 84; Vatican Council II, Const. Past. Gaudium et spes, 1-2). These are the principles of the Gospel that have always animate and inspired the life and work of the family of God, of values through which the merciful face of the Father has proved to be and continues to prove to be in the son made man, the ultimate hope of anyone who seeks the truth, justice, peace and fraternity with sincere soul (see Benedict XVI, Lett. Enc. Spec. Spe Salvi, 2; Francesco, Bolla Spes, 3). Just feeling called to continue in this trail, I thought of taking the name of Leone XIV.
There are several reasons, however mainly because Pope Leo XIII, in fact, with the historic encyclical rerum novarum, faced the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution; And today the Church offers everyone its heritage of social doctrine to respond to another industrial revolution and developments of artificial intelligence, which involve new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and work. Dear brothers, I would like to conclude this first part of our meeting by doing my own – and also proposing to you – the hope that Saint Paul VI, in 1963, placed at the beginning of his Petrine Ministry: “I will pass over the world as a great flame of faith and love that turns on all the men of good will, you risk the ways of mutual collaboration, and attracts on humanity, still and always, the abundance of the divine compliance, Without the help of which, nothing is valid, nothing is holy “(message to the entire human family here Fausto Die, 22 June 1963). These are also our feelings, to be translated into prayer and commitment, with the help of the Lord. Thank you!
