All Eyes on Sunday: Leo XIV’s First Words May Cast His Image on Church’s Future

National Catholic Register, 16 May 2025

Papal initiation homilies have long served as moments of clarity, not only inaugurating a pontificate but auguring its direction.

Pope Leo XIV will solemnly inaugurate his pontificate on Sunday — the Fifth Sunday of Easter, otherwise the feast of the martyred Pope St. John I (523-526), and the birthday of Pope St. John Paul II. 

The entire Church and much of the world will eagerly await what he will say. Recent inaugural homilies have merited careful attention.

Cardinal Robert Prevost became pope immediately upon accepting his election in the Sistine Chapel and has been exercising his office since. Nevertheless, the Mass on Sunday is the great ceremonial beginning. Up until 1963, it was the “coronation” of the new pope, who wore the papal tiara. The rite took five hours (!) in 1958 for St. John XXIII, but was simplified somewhat for St. Paul VI in 1963. 

Blessed John Paul I declined to be crowned with the tiara in 1978, and his successors have followed suit. The coronation is now the “Initiation of the Petrine Ministry of the Bishop of Rome” and includes the imposition of the pallium (liturgical symbol of a metropolitan archbishop) and the bestowal of the Fisherman’s Ring.

After being vested with the insignia of his office, Pope Leo XIV will receive the “obedience” of some “representatives of the People of God.” This moment has been used to powerful effect in the past. In 1978, John Paul II told the master of ceremonies that the Mass had to be three hours long — that was the time Polish state television had allotted for the Mass, and he did not want any time left afterward for communist spin. Each cardinal then made his individual obeisance. It was long but included the historically poignant moments of John Paul embracing Blessed Stefan Wyszynski, cardinal primate of Poland, and a young Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Munich. 

It was at that Mass, Oct. 22,  1978, that John Paul delivered the most famous papal homily of the mass communications era: “Be not afraid! Open wide the doors to Christ!” Such was the power of those words that Oct. 22 is now John Paul’s feast day. Pope Leo XIV spontaneously added John Paul’s signature phrase to his first Regina Caeli address.

Inaugural homilies in recent times have given shape to the pontificates which followed. For that reason, Pope Leo’s words will be precisely considered.

St. John XXIII

In 1958, Pope John delivered his entire homily in Latin, customary then for great occasions. It was Nov. 4, providentially the feast of St. Charles Borromeo, about which John XXIII had written a multi-volume study in his scholarly work on Church history. 

Invoking the image of the Good Shepherd, John XXIII chose to emphasize that Jesus spoke of “sheep not of this fold.” The ecumenical and evangelical impulses that would inform the Second Vatican Council were already present. 

At the beginning of the Council, Pope John welcomed a group of Jewish leaders to the Vatican. In one of the most memorable moments of his pontificate, he greeted them: “We are all sons of the same heavenly Father. … I am Joseph, your brother.”

Joseph — Giuseppe — was John XXIII’s baptismal name.

John XXIII had already used the same phrase in his inaugural homily: 

“The new Pontiff can be compared, through the vicissitudes of his life, to that son of the Patriarch Jacob, who, receiving his brothers in the presence of the most grave afflictions, shows himself loving and lamenting for them, saying: ‘I am Joseph, your brother.’” (Genesis 45:4).

St. Paul VI

Crowned the day after the solemn feast of Peter and Paul in 1963, Paul VI was the last pope to wear the tiara. He set it aside soon after as a simplification of the papal ceremonial, moving away from the idea of a royal court to that of the “papal chapel” and “papal household.”

Pope Paul said in his inaugural homily that he would continue the Second Vatican Council. It was a time of great hope, but already Paul VI could see storm clouds on the horizon.

“We will defend the Holy Church from errors of doctrine and custom, which within and outside its borders threaten its integrity and veil its beauty,” he preached in 1963, a theme he would return to often, included at his last homily, for Peter and Paul 1978.

Paul VI began in Latin, but then preached sections in Italian, French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish and Russian, foreshadowing that he would become the first pilgrim pope, taking advantage of air travel to go to every part of the globe. 

That he spoke a few words in Russian was poignant at the time — only eight months after the Cuban Missile Crisis and just two months after John XXIII’s final encyclical, Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth).

Blessed John Paul I

Pope John Paul I followed Paul VI, beginning in Latin and then switching to other languages, though only Italian and French. He delivered a very brief homily given the occasion, and almost half of it was given over to greeting those present; the rest consisted of unremarkable reflections of the Petrine office.

The homily, unwittingly, signaled the brief pontificate that was to follow. 

St. John Paul II

Pope John Paul II did not preach in Latin at all, but in Italian with paragraphs in various other languages — the most emotional of which was Polish. He also spoke briefly in French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Czechoslovakian, Russian, Ukrainian and Lithuanian.

He acknowledged that the new Bishop of Rome “is a son of Poland … [but] from this moment he too becomes a Roman.”

While “Be Not Afraid” is the most famous part of the homily, that same section indicated the Christian humanism that would be the central theme of John Paul’s long pontificate.

“Do not be afraid. Christ knows ‘what is in man.’ He alone knows it. So often today man does not know what is within him, in the depths of his mind and heart.

So often he is uncertain about the meaning of his life on this earth. He is assailed by doubt, a doubt which turns into despair. We ask you therefore, we beg you with humility and trust, let Christ speak to man. He alone has words of life, yes, of eternal life.”

It was a rare document from John Paul that did not include a reference to Gaudium et Spes, Vatican II’s teaching that Jesus Christ reveals to man what it means to be fully human.

John Paul concluded with that Christian humanism: “I also appeal to all men — to every man (and with what veneration the apostle of Christ must utter this word: ‘man’!) — pray for me!”

Pope Benedict XVI

Though Pope Benedict XVI could speak several languages, and likely was the last pope who could conduct meetings in Latin, he delivered his inaugural homily entirely in Italian. 

In a sure indication of his priorities, Pope Benedict began with a lesson from the liturgy, the singing of the Litany of the Saints at the funeral of John Paul, at the conclave, and at the inaugural Mass. He then immediately used a phrase that he would return to with increasing devotion, “the friends of God.” 

Friendship with God would be his constant proposal to the world. In a piercingly beautiful reflection on the 60th anniversary of his ordination, in 2011 as pope, Benedict began with words from the ordination ritual of 1951: I no longer call you servants, but friends (John 15:15).

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