Nigeria, May 18 -- Rome wakes differently on days like these.

The morning sun gilds the domes and spires with a reverence not born of architecture but of meaning. In St. Peter's Square, pilgrims and princes, peasants and presidents gather in one breathless communion,not merely to witness, but to belong. Today is not an ordinary day. Today, the Church crowns a new shepherd.

At the heart of the Vatican, beneath Michelangelo's eternal ceiling and Bernini's encircling arms, unfolds a liturgy as old as memory itself,the inauguration of the Petrine ministry of Pope Leo XIV. And like all such moments in Catholic tradition, it is not just an event,it is a signal to the world.

What makes a man Pope is not the white cassock nor the cheers that r...