"You, dear Cardinals, are the Pope's closest collaborators, and this is a great comfort to me in accepting a yoke that is clearly far beyond my strength, as it is beyond anyone's." With these words, Pope Leo XIV opened his first official meeting with the cardinals this morning. A speech in which the new Pontiff indicated the main lines of his pontificate, in continuity with his predecessors . " Your presence reminds me that the Lord, who entrusted me with this mission, does not leave me alone in carrying its responsibility ," he added. "I know first of all that I can always count on his help, the help of the Lord, and, by his grace and providence, on your closeness and that of so many brothers and sisters throughout the world who believe in God, love the Church and support the Vicar of Christ with prayer and good works."

"The Pope, starting with Saint Peter and up to me, his unworthy successor, is a humble servant of God and his brothers, nothing other than this. The examples of many of my predecessors have shown this well, most recently that of Pope Francis himself, with his style of full dedication in service and sober essentiality in life, of abandonment to God in the time of the mission and of serene trust in the moment of the return to the House of the Father". "Let us gather this precious legacy and resume the journey, animated by the same hope that comes from faith", added Pope Prevost.

Furthermore, the Pope underlined his desire to renew "our full adherence, on this journey, to the path that the universal Church has been following for decades in the wake of the Second Vatican Council."

In conclusion of his speech, Pope Leo XIV also explained the choice of his papal name , which recalls Leo XIII, author of the Encyclical Rerum Novarum : "Precisely because I felt called to continue in this vein , I thought of taking the name of Leo XIV. There are several reasons, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII, in fact, with the historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum, addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution; and today the Church offers everyone its heritage of social doctrine to respond to another industrial revolution and to the developments of artificial intelligence, which bring new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and work."