Pope Leo XIV broke major popemobile rule before his inaugural Mass
On Sunday May 18 thousands gathered in Vatican City's St Peter's Square to attend Leo's historic Sunday Mass service - but as he greeted the crowds he broke one major rule
Pope Leo XIV broke a major rule at his inaugural Mass this month as he arrived in his popemobile.
On Sunday May 18 thousands gathered in Vatican City's St Peter's Square to attend Leo's historic Sunday Mass service. The newly elected Pope Leo, 69, arrived at around 8.15am and could be seen addressing the crowd from his open-top popemobile.
Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost of Chicago, made history by becoming the first North American to lead the Catholic Church. He was elected in just over 24 hours by 133 cardinals from 70 countries, swiftly following the death of Pope Francis, who passed away earlier this month.
Around 200,000 people filled St. Peter's Square to witness Pope Leo XIV's inaugural Mass. Pilgrims, clergy, cardinals, and world leaders gathered under flags and cameras as the atmosphere surged with anticipation and applause.
He rode through the square in an open-back Popemobile, waving to the jubilant crowd. He chose to forgo the bulletproof enclosure that typically shields pontiffs, following the example of Pope Francis. The move broke with standard protocol, a bold decision for a newly elected American pope navigating a volatile global stage.
The first 'official' popemobile was a Mercedes-Benz Nürburg 460 Pullman given to Pope Pius XI in 1930. Its famous nickname came later in the 1970s. The unique vehicle was introduced as a way to interact with followers, but it needed to be adapted for safety reasons following the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1981. It was modified to also act as a defence vehicle, reports MailOnline.
On May 13 1981 Mehmet Ali Agca, a hitman and former member of Turkish far-right group the Grey Wolves, shot the Pope four times as he was greeting worshippers in St Peter's Square, leaving him seriously injured. After the attack, popemobiles were fitted with bulletproof glass and heavy armour to protect the pontiffs from any further assassination attempts.
The late Pope Francis was the first to turn down the security measures when he was elected in 2013, instead opting for a open-top, unlike Pope Benedict who came before him.
During the inaugural Mass Pope Leo XIV made a resounding declaration on the Catholic Church's stance regarding gay marriage and abortion, affirming that the Church's concept of family is rooted in a "stable union between a man and a woman".
The pontiff welcomed LGBTQ+ Catholics into the fold but reiterated that homosexual acts are considered "intrinsically disordered" within church teachings, maintaining the traditional doctrine that marriage is exclusively the union of a man and a woman.
Pope Leo also underscored the importance of respecting the life of the unborn and the elderly, condemning abortion and euthanasia as manifestations of the prevailing "throwaway culture."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NBC News
an hour ago
- NBC News
Russia is amplifying conspiracy theories about the L.A. protests
Protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles have triggered a flood of falsehoods and conspiracy theories online, and Russia has sought to exploit and amplify them, experts say. Russian media and pro-Russian voices have embraced right-wing conspiracy theories about the protests, including one that alleged the Mexican government was encouraging the demonstrations against President Donald Trump's immigration policies. Mexico has strongly rejected the accusation — which was repeated by Trump's chief of homeland security — as utterly false. The episode illustrates how foreign adversaries are taking advantage of genuine divisions among Americans, a tried-and-true strategy in information warfare, analysts say. Right-wing American voices online are pushing the idea that the protests in Los Angeles are not what they appear and that a secret, leftist cabal tied to Democratic politicians and the billionaire philanthropist George Soros is orchestrating unrest, experts said. 'We are following a playbook that we've followed many times before. We're seeing a lot of the same tropes, even a lot of the same exact conspiracy theories that we've seen circulate around previous protests,' said Darren Linvill, a professor at Clemson University who studies social media disinformation. There were echoes of how falsehoods spread during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, he said. 'People are, as they tend to do on social media, believing the messages that they're inclined to believe,' Linvill said. 'And influencers are taking advantage of that, oftentimes with false or sort of purposefully misleading content.' Right-wing users have posted baseless assertions that the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, has ties to the CIA and is orchestrating protests to oust President Donald Trump. 'Bass is a political warlord. She's utilizing her expertise to encourage these riots—to try to topple Trump & you,' wrote conservative podcast host Liz Wheeler on a post on X. Moustafa Ayad of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an international nonprofit that focuses on 'safeguarding democracy,' said there were parallels to how social media users have reacted to previous protests or to hurricanes that struck the Southeast last year. 'I liken it to the aftermath of Milton and Helene last year,' Ayad said. 'We have a crisis or a conflict point that is occurring, and there are numerous narratives that are being spread online that the government is somehow involved in the protests, paying protesters, or this is a deep-state plot against the United States by the CIA and other government actors,' Ayad said. From the political left, narratives online have focused on how the federal government and the military were allegedly preparing to use lethal force, while right-leaning voices warned of plots to oust Trump and cause chaos in American cities, according to Ayad. 'It's a bit like being on a seesaw, just gyrating between those two things,' he said. 'Sadly, there's this giant reinforcing loop that just builds further steam as the protests continue day to day.' Baseless claims of Mexico fomenting violence Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday repeated baseless assertions online that the Mexican government was encouraging violent protests. Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum, quickly responded, rejecting the accusation as 'absolutely false' but saying she was confident that the 'misunderstanding will be cleared up.' The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Conservative and pro-Russian social media accounts cited an outdated video of the Mexican president as the basis for their claims she was fomenting protests in Los Angeles, according to NewsGuard, a fact-checking website. The video was taken from a press conference on May 24, nearly two weeks before the start of the L.A. protests. The Mexican president's remarks were taken out of context. Sheinbaum was referring to a proposed tax by the Trump administration on any income earned by Mexican immigrants that is sent on to their families in Mexico. She criticized the proposal and said at the time: 'If necessary, we'll mobilize' against the tax. Conservative commentator Benny Johnson then posted the May 24 clip of Sheinbaum after protests began last week in Los Angeles and wrote that she was calling for protests in the United States. The post has received 6.7 million views. At a news conference on Monday, Sheinbaum made clear her government opposes any violence associated with protests. 'We do not agree with violent actions as a form of protest.' An opportunity for Russia Bret Schafer, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund think tank's Alliance for Securing Democracy, said Russia's information operations online were embracing pro-Trump portrayals of the protests as a leftist violent assault. 'Russia is in effect cheering on Trump's response and suggesting that it's warranted,' Schafer said. 'They have certainly intimated that these protests are being staged or funded by the radical left.' Russian news outlet Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted a Russian blogger in L.A. saying the protesters were not migrants but 'militants' who arrived on buses. Russian nationalist commentator Alexander Dugin wrote on X that the protests were an insurrection, a 'nationwide conspiracy of liberals against not only Trump but against American people in general.' Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer dubbed the 'Merchant of Death' by U.S. and British authorities who was released in a prisoner exchange in 2022 after spending 11 years behind bars in the United States, also weighed in on the protests. Russian media outlet Pravda quoted Bout comparing the demonstrations to the 2014 Maidan protests in Ukraine against what was then a pro-Moscow government, with Bout claiming the L.A. protests were highly organized. Pravda also quoted Sergei Markov, a former adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying the United States was in the middle of a 'civil war' pitting coastal states against interior states. Sputnik reposted a viral image of a pallet of bricks, asking why it was near the protest sites. But fact-checkers at Lead Stories geolocated the photo to a construction site about 3,000 miles away, in New Jersey. Beijing accuses Washington of hypocrisy China, however, was taking a different tack. Instead of leaning into pro-Trump narratives and repeating right-wing conspiracy theories, Beijing portrayed America as a country in turmoil. Chinese media and pro-China voices argued the American government's response to protests in Los Angeles was 'heavy-handed and therefore hypocritical' in light of Washington's criticisms of other countries' treatment of dissent, according to Schafer. An affiliate of China's global television network reminded viewers that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had praised protests in Hong Kong in 2019 as a 'beautiful sight' but asked if the American government viewed the L.A. protests in the same way. A pro-Beijing commentator, Li Jingjing, denounced what she called U.S. interference in other countries' affairs even as it denounced protesters on its soil. 'US hypocrisy at its best,' she wrote in a post. The pervasive online image of the supposed pallet of bricks frequently shows up when there are street protests, according to the Social Media Lab, a research team at Toronto Metropolitan University. 'It's catnip for right-wing agitators and grifters,' the lab said in a social media post. 'The fact that these types of fake images are used isn't a coincidence. It's part of a pernicious & persistent narrative that protests against government policies are somehow inauthentic,' it added. The approach is 'meant to make these movements seem less legitimate or less worthy of public support.'
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
ICE raids and riots leave young white Americans mocked for their dramatic take on protests
Social media influencers have been roasted for their eerily similar responses to the LA riots and immigration raids. Anti-ICE protests have swept the nation since agents first conducted raids in Los Angeles on Friday, sparking viral clashes between officers in riot gear and protesters who set vehicles on fire. Critics blasted the dozens of young Americans who posted messages shamming those who have not spoken out against the issue and called others who support Donald Trump or ICE 'bad people.' 'If you're white and see an ICE raid happening and you don't get involved, I think you're a p***y, and I don't respect you at all,' one influencer said. 'If you support ICE, if you support this current administration, if you think anything that's going on in the U.S. is good for the country, I don't think you're very pretty, and I don't think you're very smart,' said Miami influencer Sydney Michelle. One woman even said she was ashamed to have purchased a shirt with an American flag on it. 'I accidentally bought an American flag shirt today, and I'm gonna go return it because I wasn't even thinking,' she said. 'With what's going on in our country right now... trash... I'm not wearing that. People are literally getting seized and deported without the freaking due process.' Others have compared being an illegal immigrant in the United States to a minor traffic offense. 'Being undocumented is not a criminal offense; it's a civil one, and if you've ever jaywalked, congratulations, you've also committed a civil offense,' mommy influencer Allison Kuch said. Another influencer almost parroted that message, saying, 'Being in a country that you're in illegally is a civil offense, not a criminal one. You know what else is a civil offense, jaywalking.' Critics were quick to blast the influencers for posting their dramatic takes and pointed out their messages are all suspiciously similar. 'Morons on TikTok,' one person said. 'They're like all manure,' said another. 'I miss the days when not everyone had an internet connection,' a third person said. 'I always love their false equivalencies,' said a fourth. 'Thank you for repeating the same falsehood-laden NGO statements we've seen from dozens and dozens of other social media accounts. Yawn,' a fifth person said. 'The best immigration policy is articulated from the front seat of your car into your camera phone for online attention,' a sixth person said. 'Struggle session. It reminds me of the "Imagine" celebrities during COVID,' said another. 'This is when you think you're a trailblazer and on the cutting edge when you're really just another follower,' a seventh person said. While physical presence in the United States without proper authorization is a civil violation, entering the country illegally is a federal criminal offense, according to the American Immigration Council. Illegal entry includes crossing the border at a time or place not designated by immigration officers, eluding inspection by officers, or entering with false information such as fake documents. Title 8 of the U.S. Code states that the first offense of illegally entering the country is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in prison. Illegally re-entering the country after previously being deported is a felony with a maximum sentence of up to two years.
Economist
9 hours ago
- Economist
Conspiracy, cock-up or solution? The Gaza aid foundation
When hunger gnaws, any offer of food comes as a relief. And so just before dawn on June 1st Ayman, a former taxi-driver from northern Gaza displaced seven times since the start of the war, left his tent on the beach. He and his brother walked 5km through the rubble to the edge of the remains of Gaza's southern city, Rafah, and what they had been told was a new American food distribution centre there. They filed through a wire-mesh corridor towards a line of armed private-security contractors, some American, some speaking Arabic, who guarded piles of cardboard boxes filled with food. But the hungry Palestinians far outnumbered the boxes, Ayman says, and chaos erupted. Shots were fired; subsequent reports suggest some 30 people were killed. He and his brother have avoided the hubs ever since.
