God loves every person and wants to help everyone discover their inherent value and dignity, especially those who feel unworthy or unappreciated, Pope Leo XIV said.

Pope Leo XIV's prayer intention for June, a month devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, is "that the world might grow in compassion."

Families are the cradle of the future of humanity, Pope Leo XIV said during a Mass concluding the Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents and the Elderly.

Being religious does not automatically mean someone is compassionate, and yet for a Christian compassion is a clear sign of following Christ, Pope Leo XIV said.

Pope Leo XIV called attention to two important events that fell on May 24: the day of prayer for Catholics in China and the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment.

Before he was Pope Leo XIV, then-Bishop Robert F. Prevost of Chiclayo, Peru, created a commission to help women escape forced prostitution, said a trafficking survivor who worked with him.

The Gospel parable of the "wasteful sower" who casts seeds on fertile soil as well as on a rocky path "is an image of the way God loves us," Pope Leo XIV told visitors and pilgrims at his first weekly general audience.

Pope Leo XIV has named Cardinal Baldassare Reina grand chancellor of the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences.

Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, the Chicago-born prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops under Pope Francis, was elected the 267th pope May 8 and took the name Pope Leo XIV.

In Rome, the conclave is the talk of the town: from speculation over a morning espresso about who will be the next pope to taxi drivers complaining about how roadblocks have made their work even more difficult.