Bear witness to Jesus Christ, Pope exhorts cardinals (Vatican Press Office)

Celebrating Mass in the Sistine Chapel on May 9 for the College of Cardinals, Pope Leo XIV said that the task of Church leaders is to “bear witness to our joyful faith in Christ.”

The newly elected Pontiff said in his homily that the world often responds to Jesus either by rejecting Him or by seeing him as a charismatic leader, but no more. These reactions, he said, can occur even “among baptized Christians, who thus end up living, at this level, in a state of practical atheism.”

“Therefore,” Pope Leo said, “it is essential that we too repeat, with Peter: ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’”