Pope Leo XIV turns 70 and thanks God, his parents and all those who prayed for him

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ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV marked his 70th birthday on Sunday by thanking God, his parents and all those who prayed for him.

Leo, the first American pope, saw giant “Happy birthday” banners, in English, Italian and Spanish, balloons and congratulatory signs held up by the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his traditional noon blessing. Groups of Peruvian believers, including dancers in traditional attire, were out in force, a testament to the two decades the pope spent in Peru as a missionary and a bishop at the time.

“My dears, it seems you know today I have turned 70,” Leo said to cheers. “I thank the Lord, my parents and all those who remembered me in their prayers.”

Later Sunday, Leo was spending his birthday afternoon presiding over an ecumenical prayer service in honor of 21st-century martyrs.

When he was elected last May at age 69, the former Robert Prevost was the youngest pope since 1978, when Karol Wojtyla was elected Pope John Paul II at age 58.

Many people in the square knew it was Leo's birthday and wished him well, especially given the weight of responsibility he had taken on to run the Catholic Church.

“Well, he definitely needs a lot of support, because he has to carry on a pontificate during a particularly difficult period, both for geopolitical issues and certainly for internal matters," said Lorenzo Vecchio, a member of a Catholic university group in the piazza. “We are certainly happy that he is a very young pope.”

Celso Fernandez, a Rome resident originally from Leo's former diocese in Chiclayo, Peru, recalled how Chiclayo faithful used to celebrate their former bishop’s birthday, which fell on the same day as a local religious celebration. Prevost would spend his birthday with them to honor their feast day.

“Now we come to him for his birthday,” he said.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, for her part, issued a special greeting thanking Leo for his preaching, which she said was a source of inspiration. Leo's teachings, she said in a statement, “provide reliable and solid guidance in extremely complex times, when certainties seem to waver and changes are as sudden as they are profound.”

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Associated Press video journalist Paolo Santalucia in Vatican City contributed to this report.

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