When Robert Francis Prevost stepped onto the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica one year ago May 8, he carried with him a piece of paper on which he had carefully written the first words he would utter as Pope Leo XIV. His first speech was, in ways that would only become clear over the year that followed, a preview of what was to come.
Year
For the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, and for millions of other people as well, the Catholic Church’s 2025 was primarily about the death of Pope Francis and the election of Pope Leo XIV.