Pope Francis has warned in his first Mass that the troubled Catholic Church risked becoming little more than a charity with no spiritual foundations if it failed to undergo renewal.
Addressing the cardinals who elected him as Latin America’s first pope, the 76-year-old Argentinian said on Thursday the Church could “end up a compassionate NGO”, using an Italian word that can also mean “pitiful”.
“I would like all of us after these days of grace to have the courage to walk in the presence of the Lord,” Francis said, amid the splendour of the Sistine Chapel.
He warned the cardinals against “the worldliness of the Devil”.
“Walking, building and confessing are not so easy. Sometimes there are tremors,” the pope said, in a homily that will be scrutinised for clues to the style of his leadership.
The new head of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, who was formerly known as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, had begun his reign by meeting people in Rome and laying a bouquet of flowers in homage to the Virgin Mary in a basilica.
The pope also prayed at the altar of St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order to which he belongs.
He returned to the priests’ quarters where he stayed before the conclave and settled his own bill.
The election of the son of a railway worker, who was considered an outsider, was met with widespread surprise and expressions of hope for change in a Church riven by scandal and internal conflict.
It was also seen as recognition of the Church’s power in Latin America, which now accounts for 40 percent of the world’s Catholics, in contrast to its decline in Europe.
“The choice of Bergoglio shows that the Church is determined not to remain in mourning for the crisis in Europe but has opened its doors to the revitalising energy of Catholicism’s biggest continent,” Vatican expert Luigi Accatoli told the AFP news agency.
