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By Myke Agunwa
About 150,000 persons including President Bola Tinubu, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, other world leaders and thousands of christian faithful stormed St. Petera Square, Sunday morning to witness the installation of LeoXIV as the 267th pope of the largest Christian denomination.
The solemn service commenced with a Holy Mass on Sunday at 10am WAT, and the new pontif who was the Chief Celebrant, dressd in a white vestament, the sacred Ring of the Fisherman and pallium, led the Mass that lasted for about two hours.
Pope LeoXIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost is the first American and second Latin American to lead the world’s largest Christian faith of about 1.4 billion.
Since his election, the pope has consistently preached for global unity and peace and cautioned against profound societal divisions in a conflict-plagued world.
In his sermon during the ceremony, the new pontiff reached out to church conservatives, while also calling for respect of cultural and religious diversity and consideration for the marginalized. He bemoaned “an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth’s resources” and urged an end to the “hatred, violence and prejudice” cleaving nations in two.
“Brothers and sisters, this is the hour for love,” Leo declared. In a show of the multilingual nature of the papacy, Mass was in Italian, with readings in Spanish, English, Latin and Greek.
Present at ceremony were a multitude of 150,000 faithful, speaking a babel of languages, stretch of cardinals, bishops, priests, seminarians, royals, representatives of other faiths and dignitaries led by Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni, President of Peru Dina Ercilia Boluarte, Vice President JD Vance of the United State and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte.
Before the 10 a.m. Mass and in line with tradition, Pope LeoXIV debuted the popemobile, cruising the teeming square and the Mussolini-era Via della Conciliazione, to cheers and applause as the bells of the basilica tolled. Leo emulated his predecessor, Pope Francis, by traveling in the white vehicle unprotected, without a bulletproof cover.
Leo, a reserved 69-year-old, appeared pensive throughout but his pronouncements, even singing, delivered a relatively youthful vigor to a Church led for decades by older men.
Papal inaugurations are symbolic. The liturgical rite, which included intonations in Latin and a ritual descent into the Chapel of St. Peter’s Tomb, commemorate the rise of a new successor to Peter.
Leo, elected on May 8, has regularly referenced Francis and indicated some measure of continuity in his line of administration.
But unlike Francis, he launched an Instagram account, punctuated his Italian with asides in English and ingratiated himself with traditionalists by embracing the ancient tongue of the faith, Latin, more than his predecessor ever did.
All through the ceremony, Leo held unto his early themes: unity, a word widely used by conservative Catholics who had sought a more traditional pope after Francis’s less doctrinally focused papacy. At Mass, Leo echoed the need for “unity” but suggested it must also “co-exist” with another word embraced by church liberals: “diversity.”
He called on the faithful to aid the marginalized and poor and declared that religion and faith should not be heaved on others “by force.”
“This is the missionary spirit that must animate us; not closing ourselves off in our small groups, nor feeling superior to the world. We are called to offer God’s love to everyone, in order to achieve that unity which does not cancel out differences but values the personal history of each person and the social and religious culture of every people,” Leo said.
Next Sunday, the taking of canonical possession of St. John Lateran Basilica — the cathedral of the bishop of Rome — will formalize the start of the new papacy.
Meanwhile the delegation from Nigeria, led by President Tinubu arrived Vatican on Saturday and was received at the Mario De Bernardo Military Airport by Ambassador Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, officials from Vatican City and the Nigerian Embassy after the plane touched down at 6 pm local time.
President Tinubu’s entourage includes the Archbishop of Owerri and President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, Archbishop Lucius Ugorji, Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja, and Alfred Martins of Lagos.
Mathew Hassan Kukah, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, is also in the president’s entourage.
The visit of the Nigeria delegation was in response to an invitation from the Vatican.
Presidential Spokesperson Bayo Onanuga, reported in a statement on Saturday that the Papal invitation underscored the need for President Tinubu’s physical presence “at this moment of particular importance for the Catholic Church and the world afflicted by many tensions and conflicts.
“Your great nation is particularly dear to me as I worked in the Apostolic Nunciature in Lagos during the 1980s,” Pope Leo XIV further said in the invitation.