May 8, 2025
Habemus Papam! We have a pope! Robert Cardinal Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, has been elected the 267th pope of the Catholic Church. I’m excited that the Holy Spirit is working and alive and leading us into the future. I’m pleased he chose the name Leo because of what Leo XIII wrote in advancing the mission of the Church in the modern world.
May our new Holy Father foster unity within the church, a zeal for spreading the Gospel, and a deep desire among the faithful to answer their call to care for everyone, especially the poor and those on the peripheries. May we all become missionary disciples.
In his greeting from the balcony of the Basilica of St. Peter, Pope Leo said, “God loves us. God loves every one of us, and we are in the hands of God. Therefore, we can go forward without fear, hand in hand with God who is among us.”
Thanks be to God for his wisdom in guiding the conclave in their selection of our new pope.
Holy Spirit, we pray that God will pour into our new Holy Father all the graces he needs to be the father who guides us into the light of Christ, and we pray that the Church will grow in faith, hope, and love and always respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
I ask you, the faithful of the Diocese of Sioux Falls, to pray for Pope Leo XIV daily, that he will be a shepherd after God’s own heart.
Most Reverend Donald J. Kettler
Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Saint Cloud
Temporary Administrator of the Diocese of Sioux Falls