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Live updates: Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass at the Sistine Chapel

Update: Date: 6 min ago Title: China, which has a tense relationship with the Vatican, congratulates Pope Leo XIV Content: China has congratulated Robert Francis Prevost on his selection as the new pope, expressing hopes for continued dialogue with the Vatican despite their tense and sensitive ties. 'We hope that, under the leadership of the new Pope, the Vatican will continue to engage in dialogue with China in a constructive spirit, conduct in-depth communication on international issues of mutual concern, jointly promote the continuous improvement of China-Vatican relations, and contribute to global peace, stability, development, and prosperity,' Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry, told a regular news conference on Friday. The ruling Communist Party of China, an officially atheist state with millions of Catholics, has had a difficult and complex relationship with the Vatican. The Vatican has not had formal diplomatic relations with China since 1951, when the newly established communist regime broke ties and expelled the papal nuncio, the Holy See's envoy. Instead, the Vatican remains one of a dwindling number of countries – and the only one in Europe – that recognizes the sovereignty of Taiwan, a self-governing island democracy that Beijing claims. That diplomatic allegiance has remained a sore point for Beijing as it feuded with the Vatican for decades over who gets to appoint Catholic bishops in China. Pope Francis had attempted to address the issue through a landmark – although controversial – deal with the Chinese government, as he pushed the Vatican closer to the Communist Party leadership than any of his predecessors. Update: Date: 25 min ago Title: Pope Leo XIV will celebrate Mass and again appear on the balcony at St. Peter's Basilica today Content: Pope Leo XIV will celebrate Mass at the Sistine Chapel today, along with the cardinals who elected him, the Vatican said at a briefing yesterday. At midday Sunday, he will also recite the Regina Coeli prayer at St. Peter's Basilica — from the same balcony where he was revealed to the world. Journalists will be able to have an audience with the new pope on Monday morning, the Vatican added. 'We share the joy for this moment,' Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said. 'We have heard his first words to St. Peter's Square — they are the first words that Jesus pronounced after Easter. Words of peace,' he added. Update: Date: 23 min ago Title: Meet Pope Leo XIV Content: The newly chosen pontiff, now known as Pope Leo XIV, is the first pope from the United States, and the new leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. Considered a highly capable and accomplished leader, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, the 69-year-old from Chicago, most recently headed the powerful Vatican office for new bishop appointments, the Dicastery for Bishops, assessing candidates and making recommendations to the late pope. Francis appointed Prevost to the position, indicating he saw the US cleric as an effective leader. He also made him president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, where Prevost had spent much of his earlier career as a missionary. The new pontiff is a member of the Augustinian religious order and spent more than a decade as its prior general, giving him experience of heading an order spread across the world. He worked for a decade in Trujillo, Peru, and was later appointed bishop of Chiclayo, another Peruvian city, where he served from 2014 to 2023. In 2015, he also received Peruvian citizenship. Prevost earned his bachelor's in mathematics from Villanova University in Pennsylvania and went on receive his diploma in theology from the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago. He was later sent to Rome to study canon law at the Pontifical Saint Thomas Aquinas University and was ordained as a priest in June 1982. Later in his career, he taught canon law in the seminary in Trujillo, Peru. Update: Date: 23 min ago Title: These are some of the challenges Pope Leo XIV could face during his papacy Content: Now that Robert Prevost is Pope Leo XIV, he steps into a lot of responsibility and upcoming challenges as the new head of the Catholic Church. First, the world is also watching to see whether he will follow in the path of Pope Francis. Francis' rejection of opulence and his softer tone on social issues was praised by some Western leaders, but there remains a faction in the church advocating for a stricter line on questions of sex, gender, marriage and migration. He must also choose carefully when to intervene on the world stage. Francis became increasingly political in the final years of his papacy, making the case for the rights of migrants, urging a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war and suggesting — to the ire of Kyiv — that Ukraine should wave 'the white flag' and make concessions to end Russia's war in the country. These ongoing conflicts, and the rise of populism and authoritarianism around the world, set a complicated context in which the new pope — himself an important figure in global diplomacy — will operate. And how Leo will handle the clerical sex abuse scandals that have long plagued the Church could also define his papacy. Though Francis spoke defensively about his record on the matter, and took some important steps to tackle systemic issues involving abuse, the previous pope was accused by survivors' groups of failing to hold accountable bishops and cardinals accused of covering up abuse. Update: Date: 36 min ago Title: Pope Leo XIV has Creole lineage, New York Times reports, citing his brother Content: Robert Francis Prevost, who on Thursday became the first American elected Pope, has Creole of color roots in New Orleans, Louisiana, his brother confirmed to the New York Times. John Prevost, the new Pope's older brother, confirmed to the Times research done by Jari C. Honora, a family historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection. CNN reached out to John Prevost for comment. Records shared with CNN by Honora show the family of Prevost's mother, Mildred Martinez Prevost, lived in New Orleans before they migrated to Chicago, where Mildred was born in 1912. Honora also shared a marriage certificate for Mildred's parents and a photo of a family grave site that shows her parents' name. 'Her parents are listed in the 1900 census at 1933 North Prior Street in New Orleans 7th Ward neighborhood as Black and the father's occupation was cigar maker,' Honora said. 'The family were free people of color prior to the Civil War. When they move to Chicago between 1910 and 1912, they 'passed' into the white world.' Creole ancestry includes people of mixed Spanish or French and Black descent. Read the full story. Update: Date: 30 min ago Title: Victims' group alleges pope mishandled sexual abuse cases involving priests in Chicago and Peru Content: Six weeks before American Cardinal Robert Prevost became Pope Leo XIV, the activist group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) filed a complaint against him, along with other church leaders, to the Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. The group alleged Prevost 'harmed the vulnerable and caused scandal' by mishandling two situations – in Chicago in 2000, and in Peru in 2022 – involving priests accused of sexual abuse. The group said that as provincial supervisor in Chicago for the Augustinian order in 2000, Prevost allowed a priest accused of abusing at least 13 minors to live at the Augustinian order's St. John Stone Friary in Hyde Park, half a block from St. Thomas the Apostle Elementary School. The priest, Father James Ray, had been barred since 1991 from performing parish work or being alone with minors – restrictions the Archdiocese of Chicago noted when it asked Prevost to allow Ray to live at the friary, the complaint said. In the 1980s and 1990s, Prevost served as a parish pastor and diocesan official in Peru. He returned there in 2015, when Pope Francis appointed him as Bishop of the diocese of Chiclayo, Peru. In 2022, three women filed a complaint to Prevost accusing two priests there of sexual abuse beginning in 2007, when they were minors, as reported by The Pillar, a Catholic investigative journalism project. The women filed civil complaints, saying the diocese had failed to act or inform civil authorities about their allegations. But prosecutors closed the case a month later, saying the statute of limitations had expired, according to SNAP's complaint. The diocese denied the women's allegations, saying that Prevost met with them personally when they filed their initial complaint. The diocese said it suspended one priest after the complaint, and that the other was no longer in ministry because of his age and poor health. It also said it forwarded their complaint to higher-ups in Rome, to an office known as the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. But the dicastery closed that case in 2023. SNAP's complaint alleges that Prevost, as bishop, failed to open an investigation, properly inform civil prosecutors, or restrict the priests involved. The women also said church investigators never talked to them, SNAP's Pearson told CNN. Prevost's successor as Bishop of Chiclayo, Guillermo Cornejo, reopened the case in 2023 and called for a new investigation, after one of the three women went public with her accusations, as reported by The Pillar. Rodolfo Soriano Nuñez, a sociologist in Mexico City who has written extensively about the Roman Catholic church and its handling of clerical sexual abuse, said that Prevost was one of the few bishops in Peru who tried to address sexual abuse by priests, setting up a commission to deal with such cases. While he served as Bishop of Chiclayo, Prevost told newspaper La Republica in 2019 that, 'We reject cover-ups and secrecy' about sexual abuse cases. He urged people to come forward if they're aware of abuse against minors by a priest. Update: Date: 46 min ago Title: Pope appears to have reposted social media posts critical of Trump and Vance Content: The newly elected American pope, Robert Prevost, appears to have previously reposted social media posts critical of Vice President JD Vance and the immigration policies of President Donald Trump — views that were in line with his predecessor and could cause friction with the White House. An X account listed under Prevost's name did not appear to personally write any of the critical posts, but reposted articles and headlines from others. CNN has not been able to independently confirm the X account is connected to the newly elected Pope Leo XIV. The posts took aim at past comments from Vance accusing the far left of caring more for migrants than American citizens, as well as the Trump administration's wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an undocumented immigrant who was residing in Maryland before he was sent to a Salvadoran prison. The latter was the subject of the most recent critical repost. On April 14, the account reposted an article regarding Abrego Garcia and a piece written by Auxiliary Bishop Evelio Menjivar of Washington, DC. The bishop argued: 'The federal government has pursued a 'shock and awe' campaign of aggressive threats and highly visible operations of questionable legality that go far beyond mere immigration 'enforcement.'' Read the full story.