“Portugal is with you and awaits you,” stated Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa to Pope Leo XIV during a greeting session following the inauguration Mass of the Pontificate in Vatican City.
The President of the Republic also presented a rosary of Our Lady of Fatima to the leader of the Catholic Church.
Born in the United States, with an ecclesiastical career in Peru, Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected Pope in under 24 hours by the cardinals amidst ongoing internal tensions within the Catholic Church regarding changes in its relationship with society, which vary in pace across different regions.
“Love and unity: these are the two dimensions of the mission that Jesus entrusted to Peter,” the founder of the Church, said the Pope during the homily.
“In our time, we still see too much discord, too many wounds caused by hatred, violence, prejudices, the fear of the different, and an economic paradigm that exploits Earth’s resources and marginalizes the poorest,” asserted the successor to the Argentine Francis.
