Pope Leo XIV outlines path for the Catholic Church that follows in the steps of Francis

In his first formal speech for Roman Catholic Cardinals, Pope Leo XIV On Saturday he said the work of Pope Francis by sending the church in a more missionary direction, with greater cooperation between church leaders and a proximity to the marginalized.

Leo said he was dedicated to follow a modernization path that the church started in the sixties and quoted An important document That Francis published in 2013. From that document, Leo emphasized several objectives, including ‘growth in collegiality’, ‘popular piety’, a ‘loving care for the least and the rejected’ and ‘courageous and trusting dialogue with the contemporary world’.

“Francis has deported the masterful and concrete,” said Leo, referring to the document called Evangelii Gaudium.

The new pope also explained The choice of his name. The previous Pope with his name, Leo XIII, published a document in the late 19th century with the name ‘Rerum Novarum’, known in English as ‘Rights and duties of capital and labor’, in which he emphasized the right of the church to make claims about social issues such as those who related to moral questions.

The document “answered the social question in the context of the first major industrial revolution,” Leo explained.

Now, the pope added, another industrial revolution took place in the field of artificial intelligence. That, he said, “would be new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor.”

The church, he said, “offers everyone the treasury of her social doctrine as an answer.”

The reference to Francis’s document was not the only approval that the new pope of his predecessor gave. Francis, Leo noted, was a “modest servant of God and of his brothers and sisters,” who gave an “example of full dedication to service and gave the sober simplicity of life.”

The cardinals seemed to have noticed the message about maintaining the direction set by Francis’s papacy.

When he left the meeting where Leo spoke, Cardinal Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo of Venezuela said that the Pope spoke about the continuity of Francis’s pontificate and then he asked us some questions. ” Those questions were “mainly about the formation of priests and bishops,” the cardinal added.

On the way from the meeting, Cardinal Sean Brady van Ireland said that Leo was busy with ‘greeting everyone now, which is very nice’.

Jason Horowitz And Elizabeth Dias Reported from Vatican City.