The wish I feel I can make to Pope Leo from the bottom of my heart is that he will be able to lead the church in the wake of the popes who have borne this name before him, Pope Leo the Great, who was the great pope who taught the whole church to put at the center of its Christian life the integral Christ, the true God and the true man.

But also, Pope Leo XIII who was able to introduce the church inside the reality of the working world and inside the social reality.

May Pope Leo also lead the church of this our third millennium to be a church that is faithful to Jesus Christ, true God, true man, and at the same time to be also a church that is faithful to the man who lives in society and who has concrete forms of work and life and lives challenges posed by the social changes taking place.

I hope he will be a pope who resolutely brings forward the theme of peace, just as he did from the very first message on election day.

In this way he will also help us, who live in the Holy Land, to finally find a season of peace, of dialogue, of coexistence among peoples and believers of different faiths.