The new pope said he would be guided by a key document that his predecessor wrote listing the church’s priorities, including a “loving care for the least and the rejected.”

Leo XIV prayed at the tomb of Pope Francis on Saturday, just two days after being elected new head of the Catholic Church and hours after vowing to humbly follow in his predecessor’s footsteps. Vatican News published a photo of the white-robed pope kneeling before Francis’s simple marble tomb at the basilica in central Rome,

ROME - The new Chicago-raised Pope Leo XIV faces an immediate challenge in his native country: taming the brawling U.S. tribe of Catholics, riven by political divisions that have thwarted the will of his predecessors.