VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV, history’s first North American pope, said Friday that his election was both a cross and a blessing as he celebrated his first Mass in Sistine Chapel.

Leo spoke off-the-cuff in English to the cardinals who elected him to lead the Catholic Church and follow in Pope Francis’ social justice-minded footsteps. He acknowledged the great responsibility they had placed on him before delivering a brief but dense homily on the need to joyfully spread Christianity in a world that often mocks it.

“You have called me to carry that cross and to be blessed with that mission, and I know I can rely on each and every one of you to walk with me as we continue as a church, as a community, as friends of Jesus, as believers, to announce the good news to announce the Gospel,” he said.

It was in the same frescoed chapel that Leo, the Chicago-born Augustinian missionary Robert Prevost, was elected Thursday afternoon as the 267th pope, overcoming the traditional prohibition against a pope from the United States.

A Mass that may suggest his priorities

Two women delivered the Scripture readings at the start of the Mass, perhaps an indication of Leo’s intention to follow Francis’ priority to expand women’s role in the church. As a cardinal, Leo put into practice one of Francis’ most revolutionary reforms by having three women serve on the board that vets bishop nominations.

Speaking in near-perfect Italian, Leo lamented that the Christian faith in many parts of the world is “considered absurd,” mocked or opposed when there were temptations such as money, success and power. He complained that in many places Jesus is misunderstood, “reduced to a kind of charismatic leader or superman.”

“This is true not only among non-believers but also among many baptized Christians, who thus end up living, at this level, in a state of practical atheism,” he said. “Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed. A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society.”

The cardinals applauded as the Mass concluded. Leo was seen wearing simple black shoes, not the red loafers of the papacy preferred by some traditionalist popes.

Francis had his eye on the new pope

Francis, the first Latin American pope, clearly had his eye on Prevost and in many ways saw him as his heir apparent. He sent Prevost, who had spent years as a missionary in Peru, to take over a complicated diocese there in 2014. Francis then brought Prevost to the Vatican in 2023 to head of the Vatican’s powerful Dicastery for Bishops, which vets bishop nominations around the world and is one of the most important jobs in church governance.

Since arriving in Rome, Prevost had kept a low public profile but was well-known to the men who count, and respected by those who worked with him. Significantly, he presided over one of the most revolutionary reforms Francis made, when he added three women to the voting bloc that decides which bishop nominations to forward to the pope.

In a 2023 interview with Vatican News, the then-cardinal said the women had enriched the process and reaffirmed the need for the laity to have a greater role in the church.

“Even the bishops of Peru called him the saint, the Saint of the North, and he had time for everyone,” said the Rev. Alexander Lam, an Augustinian friar from Peru who knows the new pope.

An Augustinian pope

The last pope to take the name Leo was Leo XIII, an Italian who led the church from 1878 to 1903. That Leo softened the church’s confrontational stance toward modernity, especially science and politics, and laid the foundation for modern Catholic social thought. His most famous encyclical, Rerum Novarum of 1891, addressed workers’ rights and capitalism at the beginning of the industrial revolution and was highlighted by the Vatican in explaining the new pope’s choice of name.

That Leo also had close ties to the Augustinian order: He rebuilt an ancient Augustinian church and convent near his hometown of Carpineto, outside Rome, which is still in use by the new pope’s order today.

Vatican watchers said Prevost’s decision to name himself Leo was particularly significant given the previous Leo’s legacy of social justice and reform, suggesting continuity with some of Francis’ chief concerns. Specifically, Leo cited one of Francis’ key priorities of making the Catholic Church more attentive to lay people and inclusive, a process known as synodality.

“He is continuing a lot of Francis’ ministry,’’ said Natalia Imperatori-Lee, the chair of religious studies at Manhattan University in the Bronx. She added that his election could send a message to the U.S. church, which has been badly divided between conservatives and progressives, with much of the right-wing opposition to Francis coming from there.

“I think it is going to be exciting to see a different kind of American Catholicism in Rome,’’ Imperatori-Lee said.

Leo said in a 2023 interview with Vatican News that the polarization in the church was a wound that needed to be healed.

“Divisions and polemics in the church do not help anything. We bishops especially must accelerate this movement towards unity, towards communion in the church,” he said.

Leo’s brother, John Prevost, was so shocked that his brother had been elected pope that he missed several phone calls from Leo during an interview Thursday with The Associated Press. He called the pope back and Leo told him he wasn’t interested in being part of the interview.

John Prevost described his brother, a fan of Wordle, as being very concerned for the poor and those who don’t have a voice. He said he expects him to be a “second Pope Francis.”

“He’s not going to be real far left and he’s not going to be real far right,” he added. “Kind of right down the middle.”

Looking ahead

In his first hours as pope, Leo went back to his old apartment in the Sant’Uffizio Palace to see colleagues, according to selfies posted to social media. Vatican Media also showed him in the moments after his election praying in the Pauline Chapel before emerging on the loggia.

On Sunday, he is to deliver his first noon blessing from the loggia of St. Peter’s and attend an audience with the media on Monday in the Vatican auditorium, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said.

Beyond that, he has a possible first foreign trip at the end of May: Francis had been invited to travel to Turkey to commemorate the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, a landmark event in Christian history and an important moment in Catholic-Orthodox relations.

The new pope was formerly the prior general, or leader, of the Order of St. Augustine, which was formed in the 13th century as a community of “mendicant” friars — dedicated to poverty, service and evangelization. Vatican News said Leo is the first Augustinian pope.

LONDON (AP) — Skype is dead. What now?

Microsoft’s shutdown of Skype on May 5 sent millions of users scrambling to find an alternative to the pioneering internet phone service.

Skype, which Microsoft bought in 2011, was beloved by a dwindling group of users who appreciated how it let them make cheap long-distance calls as well as communicate with other users through chat messages, voice or video calls.

Some liked its simplicity and ease of use — an advantage, for example, when setting up a communications app for an elderly parent living far away.

Or they just used it out of habit.

Skype was founded in 2003 and was among the first in a wave of communication services that used voice over internet protocol technology (VoIP), which converts audio into a digital signal.

Skype’s disappearance also inconveniences Americans and other expatriates living overseas who signed up because they needed an U.S.-based number to receive text authentication codes from, say, a bank back home. It was also handy for calling 800 numbers for free even if you weren’t living in North America.

Here is a guide for life after Skype:

What’s happening

Microsoft announced in late February that it was shutting down Skype on May 5 and shifting some of its services to Microsoft Teams, its flagship office videoconferencing and group collaboration platform.

Skype users can use their existing accounts to log into Teams and have the option to automatically migrate their contacts and chats.

If you had a Skype number or a calling subscription, it stopped automatically renewing on April 3.

If your account still has credit, you can access Skype’s dial pad from the web portal or Teams to make calls.

Skype numbers won’t immediately expire on May 5 so you’ll still be able to receive calls until your subscription expires. But you’ll have to use Teams or keep the Skype dial pad open on the web portal to receive them.

Porting your number(s)

If your Skype number hasn’t expired and you don’t want to lose it, you should transfer it to another provider.

Skype numbers can be ported to a phone carrier or any number of other VoIP services. But you’ll have to start the process through the new provider, not Skype.

Google Voice

Google users can access the online search giant’s internet phone service to make calls from a smartphone or a desktop web browser. You can get your own Google Voice phone number and use features like call forwarding and voicemail. Or you can port your number from another service like Skype, but it will cost $20.

Calls to U.S., Canadian or Puerto Rican numbers are free. Rates for other countries vary.

The free version of Google Voice is only available to U.S. residents physically located in the 48 contiguous states, so that means expatriate Americans can only use it if they registered before they moved overseas.

“You cannot sign up for a Google Voice number while outside the USA,” according to a help page. “Do not try to circumvent this by using a VPN.”

Viber

Owned by Japan’s Rakuten, Viber was long considered one of the closest competitors to Skype. One key difference is that Skype users don’t need a phone number and are identified by their usernames, while Viber users need a number to register for service.

Similar to Skype, Viber users can buy credit or packages to call phone numbers around the world but it’s no longer possible to get a Viber number to receive calls.

Zoom

The videoconferencing service that’s become a byword for online company meetings offers a calling service, Zoom Phone, and features like number porting and the ability to send and receive SMS text messages.

Take note that Zoom Phone isn’t free. There are various calling plans that involve a monthly subscription cost and extra fees for international calls.

Teams

Microsoft users have the option of making calls on Teams, dubbed Teams Phone. Like Zoom Phone, you’ll need to buy a subscription and pay extra for international calls.

But it’s not an option for regular people because Microsoft says Teams Phone isn’t for consumer use and is only available to small and medium-sized businesses.

Wireless Carriers

If you absolutely need a U.S. number but live overseas, sign up for service with a low-cost virtual wireless carrier that offers cheap cellphone plans or pay-as-you-go rates.

One provider, Tello, offers monthly plans for as little as $5 and says users can activate its service even if they’re living outside the U.S.

Because mobile virtual network operators like Tello are essentially wireless phone companies that piggyback off a bigger carrier’s physical network, you can’t use it to make calls on a computer or an app.

VoIP it

There are a slew of Skype pretenders offering phone calls over the internet, such as Zoiper, VoIP.ms, CallCentric, Mytello, and Virtual Landline. Many are aimed at business users.

Some are capitalizing on Skype’s disappearance. Hushed, which started as an anonymous calling app, bills itself as a Skype alternative. Users can buy a phone number from the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom or Puerto Rico or port their own number.

It warns that some of its numbers aren’t guaranteed to work with third-party verification text messages.

“We do not intentionally block anyone from receiving these codes, but it’s common that some services will prevent verification texts from being sent to certain phone numbers due to their own security policies,” Hushed says on its website.

Park your number

Maybe you can’t decide which calling service you want to switch to. If you want to save your current number, there are services to just park your number like NumberBarn.com and Parkmyphone.com.

They let you store a phone number for a monthly fee while relaying any text messages sent to that number. You can port the number to another service whenever you want.

Beware, you can only port in U.S. or Canadian phone numbers.

eSIMs

What about an international eSIM? They’re the virtual version of the mobile phone SIM card that you can buy and add to your phone when you’re on a trip to save on roaming fees.

They offer cheap data access rates so you can use the internet without worrying about racking up a huge bill when you get home.

Unfortunately, you can’t port a Skype number to an international eSIM because of “the fundamental differences” between VoIP services and traditional mobile networks, said Pedro Maiquez, co-founder of eSIM provider Holafly. “Skype numbers are not tied to a mobile carrier’s physical infrastructure, making them incompatible with mobile eSIM solutions.”