Celebrating Mass for newly elected Pope Leo XIV as successor of St. Peter, Archbishop Bernard Hebda reflected in his homily on the gift Jesus left his Church through St. Peter and his successors.
“Jesus says, ‘it’s upon this rock that I will build my Church,’” the archbishop said May 8 at the Cathedral of St. Paul. “He tells Peter that whatever he binds on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever he looses on earth, will be loosed in heaven. It’s an extraordinary role for any individual. It’s all because it is Jesus’ desire and because he promises his Holy Spirit to the Church that we could ever believe such a thing.
“But for 20 centuries, Peter and his successors have been leading our Church, giving us the certainty of sound doctrine,” the archbishop said. “Our understanding of how it is that we can trust Peter and his successors is one of those things that distinguishes us from other Christian groups.”
“We certainly continue to remember Pope Francis’ teaching and his powerful example,” the archbishop said of the late pope, who died April 21. “And today, with the election of Pope Leo XIV, our Church has once again given us a (Holy) Father.”
Auxiliary Bishops Michael Izen and Kevin Kenney concelebrated the Mass with the archbishop. Among those attending the Mass was Andrew Salemme, 25, of St. John the Baptist in New Brighton. Salemme said he didn’t know much about Cardinal Robert Prevost before the cardinal was elected pope May 8, but he was excited to learn and pleased to be at Mass to pray for him.
Brandon Wanless, his wife, Kelsey, and their six children also attended the Mass. A professor of dogmatic theology at The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, Wanless said he and his family attended a special Mass mourning the death of Pope Francis and decided to attend Mass for the new pope.
“We thought, let’s go and pray with our kids and for our Holy Father,” Wanless said.
Also in his homily, Archbishop Hebda said there is great joy in learning more about the new pope as people share stories of Pope Leo’s childhood in Chicago, his ministry as an Augustinian and “the ways in which he’s always willing to serve the Church.”
Pope Leo XIV is the first North American to be elected pope and, before the conclave, was the U.S. cardinal most mentioned as a potential successor of St. Peter.
White smoke indicating the election of a new pope poured from the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel at 6:07 p.m. Rome time. A few minutes later the bells of St. Peter’s Basilica began to ring.
As soon as news began to spread, people from all over Rome ran to join the tens of thousands who were already in the square for the smoke watch. Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri was among them.
French Cardinal Dominique Mamberti, protodeacon of the College of Cardinals, appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at 7:12 p.m. He told the crowd: “I announce to you a great joy. We have a pope (‘Habemus papam’),” saying the cardinal’s name in Latin and announcing the name by which he will be called.
A longtime missionary in Peru, the 69-year-old pope holds both U.S. and Peruvian citizenship. La Repubblica, the major Italian daily, described him April 25 as “cosmopolitan and shy,” but also said he was “appreciated by conservatives and progressives. He has global visibility in a conclave in which few (cardinals) know each other.”
That visibility comes from the fact that as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops for the past two years, he was instrumental in helping Pope Francis choose bishops for many Latin-rite dioceses, he met hundreds of bishops during their “ad limina” visits to Rome and was called to assist the world’s Latin-rite bishops “in all matters concerning the correct and fruitful exercise of the pastoral office entrusted to them.”
The new pope speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and can read Latin and German.
