Pope Leo XIV stood on the central balcony of St Peter's Basilica this morning and delivered his first Urbi et Orbi — to the city and to the world. An estimated 26,000 people stood in the rain in St Peter's Square to receive his blessing.
The press covered the pageantry. The historic revival of Christmas Day Mass from the central altar. The American-born pope's multilingual greeting. The image of thousands of umbrellas in the Roman rain.
What they largely did not report was the substance of what he said. Let me tell you.
What Leo Actually Said
In his Christmas Mass homily, the Pope said this: "In the Child Jesus, God gives the world a new life: his own, offered for all. He does not give us a clever solution to every problem, but a love story that draws us in."
He invoked Benedict XVI's words: "Where there is room for the human person, there is room for God; even a stable can become more sacred than a temple."
And in his Urbi et Orbi, standing in the rain, addressing wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, and Myanmar, he said: "There will be peace when our monologues are interrupted and, enriched by listening, we fall to our knees before the humanity of the other."
That last line is extraordinary. In a world of maximally amplified monologues — social media, cable news, political echo chambers, algorithmic reinforcement of existing beliefs — a man with one of the most powerful platforms on earth is saying: peace begins when you stop talking and actually listen.
On Leo XIV
I have watched this papacy with great interest since the conclave in May. Leo is American — the first American pope — which means he carries into the role a particular relationship with the world's most powerful country and its culture, its pathologies, and its extraordinary vitality.
His Christmas homily quoted both Leo the Great and Benedict XVI. He is clearly a pope who sees himself in continuity with the tradition rather than in rupture from it. His words on Christmas Eve — "a love story that draws us in" — are not the language of a reformer seeking to update the Church's message. They are the language of someone who believes the message is already extraordinary and needs to be proclaimed, not revised.
As a Catholic, I find this encouraging.
The Non-Catholic Response
What has struck observers across the spectrum is how broadly Leo's Christmas message landed. Non-Catholics who would not normally pay attention to a papal address found themselves moved by it.
One writer noted his neighbour's reaction: "Your pope is what the world needs right now." That reaction tells you something about the hunger that exists — even in secular, post-Christian Western culture — for a voice that speaks about the human person with genuine conviction and without partisan agenda.
Leo is not partisan. He speaks from a tradition that is two thousand years old and claims to know something about what human beings are and what they need that no political party has managed to figure out.
A Personal Note
I have been a Catholic my whole life. It has not always been easy. The Church has human institutions and human failings, and I do not pretend otherwise.
But I believe the core of it. I believe that God became a man, that he was crucified and rose from the dead, and that this changes everything — about what human beings are, what they are for, and what genuine freedom means.
Leo XIV's first Christmas is a reminder that this tradition is alive. That it continues. That the chain has not broken.
Merry Christmas to all.
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