Pope Leo XIV holds inaugural mass at St Peter's Square

Pope Leo XIV said he wanted the Catholic Church to be a "small leaven of unity" in a time of "too much discord and too many wounds" during his inaugural papal mass attended by world leaders including the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the US Vice President JD Vance, reports the Guardian.

Calling for more love and unity, Leo said the church's "true authority" was the charity of Christ. "It is never a question of capturing others by force, by religious propaganda or by means of power. Instead, it is always and only a question of loving as Jesus did."

The Vatican confirmed that Leo would meet Zelenskyy, whose country is under invasion by Russia, later on Sunday.

Leo arrived in St Peter's Square onboard a pope mobile, to the delight of the estimated 150,000 pilgrims who had gathered there.

The mass, which marks the official start of the papacy of the Chicago-born cardinal Robert Prevost, is the biggest event to take place at the Vatican since the funeral of his predecessor, Pope Francis, in late April. Leo is the first US pope in the history of the Roman Catholic Church.

Before arriving at the altar in St Peter's Square, alongside a procession of cardinals and bishops, Leo received two gifts that symbolized the papacy.

The first was a gold signet fisherman's ring, which is named in honour of St Peter, a fisher who was the first pope. The ring represents the beginning and end of a papacy, and when a pontiff dies, it is destroyed by a senior cardinal.

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