Sunday Homily, 11 May 2025 - Fr Paul Rowse, OP

As they say in Rome, “Habemus Papam!”  We have a pope.  There’s new joy among us because we’re whole again.  Until early Friday morning our time, something was off: we were missing a feature of our life together.  Sure, the sacraments were being celebrated and good works were being done: the Church was carrying on with the mission of her Lord, but what was missing was her visible head.  During the conclave, the creatures which received the loudest cheers were the seagulls loitering by the chimney: something was awry.

For us, the Pope is the visible head of the Church.  We have an invisible head, Christ the Good Shepherd, who is responsible even for the visible head.  But the pope is Peter, and as such he is the first disciple of the Church today and our first teacher.  He’s the guardian of Christ’s fullest teaching.  So, it would be good to try listening to the pope as one who is keeping in front of our minds something which has been neglected of late or developed from of old.

Habemus papam; we have a pope.    The roar of the crowds was quite something.  They reacted so strongly to the smoke, the bells, and then finally the announcement.  So much was said without words.  And we ought never underestimate the power symbols have to speak about spiritual things.  St Dominic’s Church, and especially our tower, speak to our neighbours about the permanence of the Church and her message, with the tower’s finials pointed towards heaven.  And when the announcement came, it was in Latin.  I’m delighted how good everyone’s Latin has suddenly become.

Overnight, Pope Leo XIV has told us why he chose the name.  Popes are the only people who chose their own name.  Our parents gave us names; hearing them can remind us of the debt we owe mother and father.  Religious might propose names to their superior as they enter community life, but none of the names are theirs until the superior bestows one on them.  Wives when they take their husband’s names are taking a name he himself was given.

Leo is a very old papal name.  It’s new to our ears and will take a while to get used to hearing.  In this jubilee year, the centenary of the Council of Nicaea, Leo is an important name because it was the first Pope Leo, the Great, who years after defended the Nicene faith: Christ is one person in two natures.  The last pope Leo died 122 years ago: so, there’s no one alive who remembers a Leo as pope.

Pope Leo XIII began the great tradition of papal social teaching with his encyclical Rerum Novarum, Of New Things.  Against the growing threat of Marxism, he insisted on the natural right to private property.  But he was equally concerned to address the social inequalities which arose as a result of the industrial revolution.  It seems whenever technology replaces a worker rather than aids them, there has been a change for the worse in common respect for human dignity.  Leo XIII also promoted the study of St Thomas Aquinas: there is a special commission for this purpose which bears his name, as the Leonine Commission.  We shall see what regard the Augustinian pope will have for a Dominican theologian!

Pope Leo XIV has said he is concerned with the changes to human labour which are coming about through the use of artificial intelligence.  There are powerful literary tools now available to us, but what are the consequences for human ingenuity, for intellectual property, for the human dignity of students, teachers, and authors?  We shall see what our Leo has to say.  If Leo XIII wrote Of New Things, perhaps Leo XIV will write Of Newer Things.

We shall wait and see what our holy father, the Lord’s first disciple, will do and say.  But it’s good to have a pope again who is young and well: he walks and kneels with ease; he celebrates the Mass himself.  We wish him well. More importantly, we pray God will make Leo XIV a good shepherd, a great shepherd.  For if he is good, and I’m sure he will be, then we have hope of being all the more faithful to the divine Shepherd.  It is he who gives eternal life to those who remain his, and who lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.

Fr Paul Rowse, OP Parish Priest