The public got a moving first look at Pope Leo XIV.
Just hours after Cardinal Robert Prevost was named the new head of the Roman Catholic Church on Thursday, Vatican News posted footage of the new pontiff embracing the 133 members of the College of Cardinals who selected him.
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The Chicago-born pope’s gesture of gratitude in the Sistine Chapel came just hours after he was selected by the cardinals on the second day of the conclave.
The footage shows Pope Leo XIV delivering a prayer before the members of the college from the altar of the historic Roman cathedral, and is then seen kneeling in a private prayer on a prie-dieu.
Finally, he smiles as he shakes hands with the cardinals.
Born in Chicago, Leo XIV is the first-ever American pope.
After rising through the ranks of the Augustinian Order, Prevost was appointed an administrator at the Diocese of Chicago, and a year later made a bishop by the late Pope Francis.
Close allies, Prevost oversaw many of Francis’ most radical reforms to the Catholic Church.
The 14th pope to choose Leo, Prevost’s most recent namesake was also revered for his Catholic social teachings.
Leo XIII was remembered largely for his famed 1891 “Rerum Novarum” — Latin for “On New Things” — which reflected on workers’ rights and capitalism in the midst of the Industrial Revolution.
Leo XIV is expected to celebrate Mass at the Sistine Chapel on Friday morning and will deliver his first Sunday noon blessing from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica this weekend.
