Pope Leo XIV was not chosen "for being perfect" but "for loving"

See also:

The Patriarch of Lisbon stated this Friday that Pope Leo XIV was not chosen “for being perfect”, but “for loving”, and his mission is service, responsibility and the cross.

“The authority that Christ entrusts to Peter is born of love, understood as the ability to give one’s own life. It is not dominion, but service. It is not prestige, but responsibility. It is not privilege, but a cross,” stated Bishop Rui Valério, referring to the “first Pope” by mandate of Jesus.

In his homily at the Mass in thanksgiving for the election of Pope Leo XIV, the Patriarch of Lisbon stated that this is a “luminous hour in the life of the Church”, stressing that the successor of Peter, like himself, “is not chosen because he is perfect”, but “is chosen because he loves”, valuing the fact that the election took place during the Jubilee 2025.

“How fitting it is that this election should have taken place in the midst of the Jubilee of 2025, in which we discover ourselves to be ‘Pilgrims of Hope’! Providence offers us an eloquent sign: a new Pope for a new time of grace, a new Peter to lead the holy people of God as pilgrims of hope amid the tribulations of the world”, he said.

“Today, we are called to rediscover the beauty of Christian hope: not as an escape from reality, but as courage to transform the world with the light of the Gospel.”

D. Rui Valério referred to the first homily of the Mass that Leo XIV presided over this morning, in the Sistine Chapel, concelebrated by the College of Cardinals, stating that the Pope did not “only speak of doctrine”, but “of a gaze”.

“The gaze of the world, often indifferent or hostile to the Gospel, and the gaze of faith, which recognizes in Jesus not just a prophet or a wise man, but the Son of the living God. And he told us that this is the time to courageously witness to the joy of faith, especially where it seems to be absent or undervalued,” he stressed.

The Patriarch of Lisbon hoped that, during the Jubilee, “all the children of the Church will find new enthusiasm to walk as pilgrims of hope”.

“We, the Church of Lisbon, also want to be a voice in this new song, in unison with Pope Leo. We want to be a synodal and missionary Church, unafraid to bear witness to Christ. The mission is urgent, precisely in those places where ‘it is not easy to bear witness to or proclaim the Gospel’,” he said.

“Let us therefore pray for the Holy Father Leo XIV. May the Lord sustain him with the strength of the Spirit, enlighten him with wisdom from on high and console him with the love of all the people of God”, concluded the Patriarch of Lisbon in the Mass he presided over in the diocesan See.