Where Christians are "mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied" is where the Catholic Church's "missionary outreach is most desperately needed," Pope Leo XIV said in his first homily as leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics.

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“He is a person of great gentility, a great listener,” Fr. Tony Banks, a friend of the new pope and the Assistant General of the religious Order of St. Augustine, told CNN.