Tens of thousands of faithful Catholics gathered in St. Peter’s Square to watch Pope Leo XIV deliver the first Sunday blessing of his pontificate exactly at noon.

I, too, address the world’s great powers by repeating the ever-present call ‘never again war,’” Leo said from St. Peter’s Basilica.

On his first Sunday appearance as pope, Leo XIV made a passionate appeal for peace and an end to the armed conflicts in the world, especially in Ukraine and Gaza, and cried out, “Never again war!”

Pope Leo XIV delivered his first Sunday noon blessing from the loggia at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, three days after the 69-year-old Chicago-born missionary made history as the first American elected to lead the Catholic Church.

Pope Leo XIV called for a genuine and just peace in Ukraine and an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, in his first Sunday noon blessing as pontiff that featured some symbolic gestures suggesting a message of unity in a polarized Catholic Church.

Robert Francis Prevost has addressed the world for the first time as Pope Leo XIV, sharing a message of peace and paying tribute to the late Pope Francis