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His first words in English as a pope

The first U.S.-born pope in history used Italian and Spanish in his blessing to the crowd on Thursday from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.

But at the start of his first Mass on Friday morning, he turned briefly to his native English to address the cardinals who elected him as the leader of the Catholic Church the day before. He began by quoting the responsorial psalm about praising the Lord for his wondrous works.

“I invite you to recognize the marvels that the Lord has done, the blessings that the Lord continues to pour out upon all of us,” Leo told them. “Through the ministry of Peter, you have called me to carry that cross and to be blessed with that mission.”

On faith and missionary work

As Cardinal Robert Provost, the new pope did and he addressed the significance of missionary work in his homily.

In impeccable Italian, Leo decried that in today’s world “there are many contexts in which the Christian faith is considered something absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent. Contexts where other certainties are preferred, such as technology, money, success, power, pleasure.

“These are environments where it is not easy to bear witness to, and announce, the Gospel, and where believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied. Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where mission is urgently needed. Because the lack of faith often carries with it tragedies such as the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, violations of human dignity in the most dramatic manners, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society.”

On Jesus as Savior, not superman

In another reference to the ills of today’s world, Leo said: “Today, too, there are many contexts in which Jesus, although appreciated as a man, is reduced to a kind of charismatic leader or superman.”

“This is true not only among non-believers but also among many of the baptized, who thus end up living at this level, in a state of practical atheism. This is the world that has been entrusted to us, a world in which, as Pope Francis taught us so many times, we are called to bear witness to joyful faith in Christ the Savior.”

On being called by God to help make the church ‘an ark of salvation’

Leo told the cardinals that he felt he was called by God to become pope in order to be a “faithful administrator” to the Catholic church.

“He has done so in order that she (the church) may be ever more fully a city set on a hill, an ark of salvation sailing through the waves of history and a beacon that illumines the nights of this world. And this, not so much through the magnificence of her structures or the grandeur of her buildings — like the monuments in which we find ourselves — but rather through the holiness of her members.”