Newly elected Pope Leo XIV appears at the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Thursday, May 8, 2025. (AP/PTI)(AP05_08_2025_000490B)
Vatican City, May 9 (AP) Pope Leo XIV, history’s first North American pope, celebrated his first Mass as pontiff on Friday, presiding in the Sistine Chapel with the cardinals who elected him to succeed Pope Francis and follow in his social justice-minded footsteps.Wearing white vestments, Leo processed into the Sistine Chapel and blessed the cardinals as he approached the altar and Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgment” behind it.
It was in the same frescoed chapel that Leo, the Chicago-born missionary Robert Prevost, was elected Thursday afternoon as the 267th pope and the first from the United States. (AP) SCY SCY
