Pope Leo XIV to carry inaugural mass at St Peter’s Square in entrance of 250,000

An estimated 250,000 pilgrims and a bunch of worldwide leaders and royals, together with the United States vice-president, JD Vance, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy; Canadian high minister, Mark Carney, and Britain’s Prince Edward, are anticipated to wait St Peter’s Square for the inaugural mass of Pope Leo XIV.

The provider, which starts on Sunday at 10am native time, marks the respectable get started of the papacy of the primary US pontiff within the historical past of the Roman Catholic church.

The Chicago-born cardinal Robert Prevost, 69, used to be elected to prevail the overdue Pope Francis previous this month after a conclave that lasted lower than 26 hours.

Other international leaders attending come with the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, the Argentinian president, Javier Milei, and the Australian high minister, Anthony Albanese.

As is custom for an inaugural papal Sunday mass, Leo is predicted to reach in St Peter’s Square aboard a popemobile and spend a while greeting the group.

Alongside a procession of cardinals, the pope then enters St Peter’s Basilica, the place he’ll obtain two presents that symbolise the papacy.

The first is a gold signet fisherman’s ring, which is called in honour of St Peter, a fisher who used to be the primary pope. The ring represents the start and finish of a papacy, and when a pontiff dies, it’s destroyed by way of a senior cardinal. Until 1842, the hoop used to be used to seal respectable paperwork signed by way of the pope.

The 2nd present is a lamb’s wool pallium, which symbolises the pope’s position as a shepherd, and is draped over his shoulders sooner than the mass starts.

JD Vance, who in brief met Pope Francis within the Vatican the day sooner than he died, and the United States secretary of state, Marco Rubio, will constitute the United States.

Before being elected as pope, Prevost criticised Donald Trump’s management in numerous posts on his X account, principally focused on the federal government over its insurance policies on immigration.

In February he additionally shared on X an op-ed revealed within the National Catholic Reporter titled: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others,” after feedback Vance, who transformed to Catholicism in 2019, made in an interview on Fox News.

The Vatican has now not showed or denied whether or not the social media posts had been unique. Vance and Trump additionally clashed with Pope Francis over immigration.

Prevost’s criticisms resulted in a backlash from Trump’s hardline conservative supporters after he become pope. The activist Laura Loomer, who wrote on X: “He is anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, pro-open Borders, and a total Marxist like Pope Francis.”

Pope Leo XIV will stay energetic on social media during the respectable papal accounts on X and Instagram, the Vatican mentioned ultimate week. On X, the platform owned by way of Elon Musk, the billionaire tasked by way of Trump to scale back executive spending and minimize jobs, @Pontifex communicates in 9 languages to a complete of 52m fans.

In one among his first posts on X, Leo wrote: “The Holy See is willing to help enemies meet, so they may look each other in the eye and so people may be given back the dignity they deserve: the dignity of peace. With heart in hand, I say to the leaders of nations: let us meet; let us dialogue; let us negotiate!”