New Pope Leo Celebrates First Mass: Jesus Was Not Just A ‘Charismatic Leader Or Superman’

On Friday, the day after he was elected as the first pope from the United States, Pope Leo XIV told cardinals that he intended to correct the notion that Jesus Christ was simply a “charismatic leader or superman.”

As he celebrated his first Mass in the Sistine Chapel, Leo also opined that many people across the world consider the Christian faith “absurd,” the Associated Press reported.

“This is true not only among non-believers but also among many baptized Christians, who thus end up living, at this level, in a state of practical atheism,” he stated. “Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed. A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society.”

Leo, who helped Pope Francis implement a change whereby women were added to the voting committee that decided which nominations for bishops should be sent to the pope, also saw that two women delivered the Scripture readings at the start of the Mass on Friday.

Leo is scheduled to deliver a noon blessing from the loggia of St. Peter’s on Sunday and speak with the media on Monday, according to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni.

His first foreign trip could be at the end of the month as Pope Francis had been invited to travel to Turkey to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, the Associated Press reported. That Council largely revolved around the debate over Arianism, the Christological position that Jesus was created by God. At the time, Arianism was popular in much of the Roman Empire. The Council, convened by the Roman emperor Constantine, declared Arianism as heresy.

“Arius’s basic premise was the uniqueness of God, who is alone self-existent (not dependent for its existence on anything else) and immutable; the Son, who is not self-existent, cannot therefore be the self-existent and immutable God. Because the Godhead is unique, it cannot be shared or communicated. Because the Godhead is immutable, the Son, who is mutable, must, therefore, be deemed a creature who has been called into existence out of nothing and has had a beginning,” Britannica explains.