Pope Leo XIV He marked his 70th birthday on Sunday with a public address in which he thanked God, his parents and his followers, after receiving his birthday cake from the new US ambassador to the Vatican.

Leo, the first pope born in the US, saw the giant banners “Happy Birthday”, in English, Italian and Spanish, balloons and congratulations held by believers gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his traditional blessing of noon. The groups of Peruvian believers, including dancers in traditional clothing, were in force, as evidenced by the two decades that the Pope spent in the South American country as a missionary and bishop at that time.

“My dear, you seem to know today that I have been 70,” Leo told Cheers. “I thank the Lord, my parents and everyone who remembered me in their prayers.”

Later on Sunday, Leo spent his birthday in the afternoon a chairman of the Ecumenical Prayer Service in honor of the Martyrs of the 21st century.

The Pope received a birthday cake from Brian Burch, a new ambassador of President Trump in Vatican, at a meeting on Saturday, Reuters reported. The video of the exchange showed that Burch was present Leo with a chocolate cake, covered with a red inscription where he said “Happy Birthday by Pope Leo XIV.” According to Reuters, the cake arrived from Portillo’s, which is a popular restaurant in Chicago, where the Pope is.

Burch started his mandate as an ambassador on Saturday, said the US Embassy Saint See UA statement. His meeting with the Pope was mostly held to introduce his credentials to Leo, the ceremony and “an important turning point in a continuous diplomatic relationship between the United States and the Holy View,” the embassy said.

When He was chosen Last May at the age of 69, former Robert Prekost has been the youngest Pope since 1978, when Karol Wojtyla was elected Pope John Paul II at the age of 58.

Many people in the square knew that it was Leo’s birthday and they wished him well, especially given the severity of the responsibility he had taken over to lead the Catholic Church.

“Well, he definitely needs great support, because he has to continue pontificate during a particularly difficult period, both for geopolitical issues and certainly for internal questions,” said Lorenzo Vecchio, a member of the Catholic University Group in Piazzi. “We are surely happy to be a very young pope.”

Celso Fernandez, a resident of Rome, originally from the former former Diocese of Leo in Chiclay, Peru, recalled that the faithful Chiclayo celebrated his former bishop’s birthday, who fell on the same day as a local religious celebration. He would spend his birthday with them to pay tribute to their holiday day.

“Now we come to him on his birthday,” he said.

The Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, on her part, issued a special greeting thanks to Leo on preaching, which she said was a source of inspiration. Leo’s teachings, she said in a statement: “They give reliable and solid instructions in extremely complex times, when it seems that the safety of the waving and the changes are at all as deep.”