Standing, straight on the white jeep which serves as a daddy, the new Pope Leo XIV takes a crowd. It was released from 9 a.m., an hour before the start of its inauguration mass which took place on Sunday May 18, to greet the approximately 200,000 people gathered in Saint-Pierre Place in Rome, in an attempt to see the pontiff elected ten days earlier. The last Tour of Papamobile to which they attended, Sunday April 20, was that of a sick François, with an exhausted eye and the slow gestures; The pope had barely managed to slightly lift his hand to bless the crowd. The next day, Easter on Monday, he made his last breath. Almost a month later, historical funerals and a conclave later, faithful, pilgrims and tourists are preparing to attend an inauguration ritual which only takes place every fifteen or twenty years thanks to the election of a new pontiff.
The opportunity has also seen leaders around the world move, at the forefront of which part of the Peruvian government, second nationality of the one who was still, a few days ago, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost. President Dina Boluarte thus came accompanied by her Minister of Foreign Affairs, Elmer Chialer, but also of his Minister of Justice Juan Enrique Alcanta Medrano. On the American side, country of birth of Pope Leo XIV, originally from the city of Chicago, it is the vice president JD Vance, converted in 2019 to Catholicism, which made the trip. Prime Minister François Bayrou was also present on Sunday, accompanied by the Minister of Education, Elisabeth Borne, or Catherine Vautrin at the head of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Solidarity.
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Source: Lemonde