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Pope Leo xiv Address to the College of Cardinals
Saturday, 10 May 2025
Thank you very much, Your Eminence. Before taking our seats, let us begin with a prayer, asking the Lord to continue to accompany this College, and above all the whole Church with this spirit, with enthusiasm, but also with deep faith. Let us pray together in Latin.
Pater Noster… Ave Maria…
In the first part of this meeting, there will be a short talk with some reflections that I would like to share with you.
But then there will be a second part, something like the opportunity that many of you had asked for:
A kind of dialogue with the College of Cardinals to hear the advice, the suggestions, the proposals, the concrete things that have already been discussed in the days leading up to the Conclave.
Dear Brother Cardinals,
I greet you all with gratitude for this meeting and for the days that preceded it.
They have been sad days because of the loss of the Holy Father Pope Francis and demanding because of the responsibilities we have faced together, but at the same time, in accordance with the promise made to us by Jesus himself, they have been days rich in grace and consolation in the Spirit:
(John 14:25-27 – For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the end he will stand upon the earth;
and when my skin has been thus destroyed, then I shall see God from my flesh, whom I shall see on my side,
and my eyes shall see him, and no other. My heart faint within me!).
You, dear Cardinals, are t the Pope’s closest collaborators.
This has been a great consolation for me in accepting a yoke that is clearly far beyond my own limited strength, as it would be for any of us.
Your presence reminds me that the Lord, who has entrusted me with this mission, will not leave me alone to carry out its responsibility.
I know, above all, that I can always count on his help, the help of the Lord, and through his grace and providence, on your closeness and that of so many of our brothers and sisters throughout the world who believe in God, love the Church and support the Vicar of Christ with their prayers and good works.
I thank the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re – who deserves at least one applause, if not more – whose wisdom, the fruit of a long life and many years of faithful service to the Apostolic See, has helped us greatly during this time.
I thank the Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell – I believe he is present today – for the important and demanding work that he has done throughout the period of the vacancy of the See and for the convocation of the Conclave.
My thoughts also turn to our brother Cardinals who, for reasons of health, were unable to be present, and I join you in embracing them in communion of affection and prayer.
At this moment, both sad and joyful, providentially bathed in the light of Easter, I would like all of us to see the passing of our beloved Holy Father Pope Francis and the Conclave as a paschal event, a stage in that long exodus through which the Lord continues to lead us towards the fullness of life.
In this perspective, we entrust to the “merciful Father and God of all consolation” (2 Cor 1:3) the soul of the late Pontiff and the future of the Church.
From St. Peter to me, his unworthy Successor, the Pope has been a humble servant of God and of his brothers and sisters, and nothing more than this.
This has been clearly seen in the example of so many of my predecessors, and most recently in Pope Francis himself, with his example of total dedication to service and to sober simplicity of life, his abandonment to God throughout his ministry and his serene trust at the moment of his return to the Father’s house. Let us take up this precious legacy and continue on our journey, inspired by the same hope that is born of faith.
It is the Risen Lord, present among us, who protects and guides the Church, and continues to fill her with hope through the love “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom 5:5). It is up to us to be attentive listeners to his voice and faithful servants of his plan of salvation, remembering that God loves to communicate himself, not in the roar of thunder and earthquakes, but in the “whisper of a gentle breeze” (1 Kings 19:12) or, as some translate it, in a “sound of pure silence.”
It is this essential and important encounter to which we must lead and accompany all the holy People of God entrusted to our care.
During these days we have seen the beauty and felt the strength of this immense community which welcomed and mourned its shepherd with such affection and devotion, accompanying him with faith and prayer in his final encounter with the Lord.
We have seen the true greatness of the Church, which lives in the rich diversity of its members in union with its one Head, Christ, “the shepherd and protector” (1 Pet 2:25) of our souls.
She is the womb from which we were born and at the same time the flock (Jn 21:15-17), the field (cf. Mk 4:1-20) entrusted to us to protect and cultivate, to nourish with the sacraments of salvation and to make fruitful by our sowing the seed of the Word, so that, steadfast in unity and enthusiastic in mission, she may go forward, like the Israelites in the desert, in the shadow of the cloud and in the light of God’s fire (cf. Ex 13:21).
In this regard, I would like us today to renew together our complete commitment to the path that the universal Church has been following for decades now, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council.
Pope Francis has set it out masterfully and concretely in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, from which I would like to highlight some fundamental points::
the return to the primacy of Christ in proclamation (cf. No. 11);
the missionary conversion of the whole Christian community (cf. No. 9);
growth of collegiality and synodality (cf. No. 33);
attention to the sensus fidei (cf. Nos. 119-120), especially in its most authentic and inclusive forms, such as popular piety (cf. No. 123);
loving concern for the least and the rejected (cf. No. 53);
courageous and trusting dialogue with the contemporary world in its various components and realities (cf. No. 84; Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 1-2).
These are evangelical principles which have always inspired and guided the life and activity of the Family of God.
In these values, the merciful face of the Father has been revealed and continues to be revealed in his incarnate Son, the ultimate hope of all who sincerely seek truth, justice, peace and fraternity (cf. Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, 2; Francis, Spes Non Confundit, 3).
I felt called to continue along this same path, and I chose to take the name Leo XIV.
There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution.
In our time, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social doctrine in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence which pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor.
Dear brothers, I would like to conclude the first part of our meeting by making my own – and proposing to you too – the hope expressed by St. Paul VI at the inauguration of his Petrine Ministry in 1963: “May it spread throughout the whole world like a great flame of faith and love kindled in all men and women of good will. May it illuminate on paths of mutual cooperation and bless humanity abundantly, now and always, with the power of God, without whose help nothing is valid, nothing is holy” (Message Qui Fausto Die addressed to the entire human family, 22 June 1963).
May these also be our sentiments, to be translated into prayer and commitment, with the help of the Lord. Thank you!
