Pope will hold private mass in the Sistine Chapel at 0900 GMT, during which he will give his first papal homily

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Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the president of the Philippines, where 80% of the population is Catholic, has congratulated Pope Leo on his election and said he prayed that he would “continue to bring the Church closer to the poor and disadvantaged”. In a statement carried by local media, he said:

On behalf of the Philippines, I congratulate Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost of the United States on his election as the successor of Pope Francis and leader of the 1.4 billion-strong Catholic Church

“As the new pontiff, who took the papal name Leo XIV, ascends the Chair of St. Peter and assumes the mantle of Bishop of Rome, I pray that he will continue to bring the Church closer to the poor and disadvantaged.

Prevost had been a leading candidate for the papacy since Francis tapped him to be head of the Vatican’s powerful Dicastery for Bishops, which vets bishop nominations around the world.

There had long been a taboo on a US pope, given America’s superpower status in the secular world, but Prevost prevailed, perhaps because he’s also a Peruvian citizen and had lived for years in Peru, first as a missionary and then as bishop.

Francis, the first Latin American pope, clearly had his eye on Prevost and in many ways saw him as his heir apparent. He sent Prevost to take over a complicated diocese in Peru in 2014, then brought him to the Vatican in 2023.