Pope Leo XIV celebrated with his elected cardinal at the first mass held at Sistine Church on Friday as Italian media exaggerated the historical significance of Chicago-born missionary Robert Prevost, becoming the first North American chief.

"Pope of America: Peace" is the title of Daily Corriere Della Sera, and La Repubblica (La Repubblica) is just going with "The American Pope". Both newspapers dedicated about half of the pages to the Pope’s report, noting that when the 69-year-old Prevost appeared on St. Peter’s balcony on Thursday, he wore traditional Burgundy wine and stole gold embroidery on his shoulders. This is contrary to his predecessor Francis, who chose all white when he was elected in 2013.

Corriere Della Sera, in the editorial of a book titled "The Mime Pope", said Leo XIV is "absolutely less" in form than Francis. But it points out that he might become so "substantive".

Italian media also stressed that Pope Lion, fourteen-year-old Lion XIV, was younger than his two past predecessors when he became Pope, loved playing tennis, swimming in Lake Michigan, at least one account-smelling to fried chicken.

Italian newspapers also call it the prophecy of Italian director Paolo Sorrentino.

Sorrentino imagines the election of the first American Pontiff played by Jude Law in his 2016 Sky/HBO TV series Young Pope, 47-year-old Lenny Belardo, the conservative, named after Pius XIII, and smokes, plays the pool, plays, and plays Cherry Coke Coke Zero Zero Zero at breakfast.

La Repubblica quoted the director of the Oscars in a 2016 Venice press conference that the pope portrayed in the show was completely different from Frances. The paper also quotes him as saying: "This does not mean that a pope like this will not happen in the near future."

"It is illusory that the church has already embarked on the path of progressivism," La Repubblica quoted Sorrentino as saying at the time. "Indeed, after this pope, another pope may show the opposite sign."

“About this prophecy, we still suspend our judgment to understand what the Pope Lion Fourteen really looks like,” La Repubblica said.

Prevost spent most of his career in Peru in Peru and became a cardinal in 2023, often considered a progressive person who hopes to provide continuity for Francis’ vision of greater reforms within the Vatican. Francis brought him to Rome in 2023 to take charge of the Vatican office, responsible for selecting which priests should serve as Catholic bishops.

Since arriving in Rome, Prevost presided over one of Francis’ most groundbreaking reforms, when he added three women to the voting committee, which believed that the bishop nomination, which was apparently male, should be forwarded to the Pope.

However, according to the New York Times, Prest welcomes LGBTQ+ people less than Francis. The Times said in his 2012 speech to the Bishop, he lamented that Western news media and popular culture promoted "sympathy for faith and practice that contradicted the gospel." For example, Prevost at the time quoted “a gay lifestyle” and “an alternative family consisting of same-sex couples and their adopted children.”