Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has arrived in Rome to attend Pope Leo XIV’s inauguration along with a large number of world leaders and royalty.

The prime minister flew into Rome on Friday from Jakarta, after holding formal meetings with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in his first overseas trip after his election victory.

A list of who Albanese will hold sideline talks with ahead of the inauguration has not been released publicly.

Among those in attendance will be Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

US Vice President JD Vance is set to represent America at the event in place of President Donald Trump, while Prince William will also attend.

Pope Leo XIV is the first US-born pontiff to lead the Catholic Church. Photo: AAP

It’s expected Albanese will formally invite Pope Leo XIV to Australia for the International Eucharist Conference, which will take place in 2028.

“It is also a great honour to represent Australia at Pope Leo XIV’s inauguration – a historic occasion for the Catholic Church,”  Albanese said in a statement.

“The event will connect Catholics around the world, and the millions of Australians of Catholic faith, as they celebrate and welcome the new Bishop of Rome and pontiff to amplify his message of peace and social justice for all humanity.

“I look forward to reinforcing Australia’s strong relationship with the Holy See under Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate.”

Pope Leo XIV is the first person from North America to be appointed to the position as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.

The death of his predecessor, Pope Francis, came during the federal election, which led to campaign events being suspended for the day.

Albanese, who is also Catholic, told the Inside Politics podcast while he often doesn’t talk about his religious views, it had informed his morals in politics.

“It’s part of who I am, my upbringing,” he said.

“During the campaign, one of the statements I made that resonated … was that kindness isn’t weakness.

“That really is something that’s a part of how I was raised in the Catholic faith about having compassion and kindness for people, particularly vulnerable people.”

Pope restates on marriage

Pope Leo XIV has affirmed that the family is founded on the “stable union between a man and a woman”, and the unborn and elderly enjoy dignity as God’s creatures, articulating clear Catholic teaching on marriage and abortion at the start of his pontificate.

Leo, the first American pope, also called for reviving multilateral diplomacy and promoting dialogue between religions in the search for peace, in his first meeting with the Vatican diplomatic corps.

The audience on Friday was private, but the Vatican released Leo’s prepared text and that of the dean of the diplomatic corps.

The encounter is one of the protocol requirements after a conclave, allowing a new pope to greet representatives of world governments before his formal installation mass on this Sunday.

The Holy See is a sovereign state under international law, has diplomatic relations with more than 180 countries and enjoys observer status at the United Nations.

Leo, a member of the Augustinian religious order, has emphasised peace as a priority of his pontificate, from the first words he uttered on the loggia of St Peter’s Basilica after his May 8 election, “Peace be with you all.”

In his remarks, he said the search for peace was one of the pillars of the papacy.

He insisted that peace is not just the absence of conflict but a “gift” that requires work, from an end to the production of weapons to choosing words carefully.

“For words too, not only weapons, can wound and even kill.”

He said it was up to governments to build peaceful societies “above all by investing in the family, founded upon the stable union between a man and a woman”.

“In addition, no one is exempted from striving to ensure respect for the dignity of every person, especially the most frail and vulnerable, from the unborn to the elderly, from the sick to the unemployed, citizens and immigrants alike,” he said.

Pope Francis strongly reaffirmed core Catholic teaching opposing abortion and euthanasia, saying they were evidence of today’s “throwaway culture”.

But he also made reaching out to LGBTQI Catholics a hallmark, insisting they are welcome in the church.

He never changed church doctrine defining marriage as a union between man and woman and homosexual acts as “intrinsically disordered”.

As the then-head of the Augustinian order, the Reverend Robert Prevost in 2012 criticised the “homosexual lifestyle” and the role of mass media in promoting acceptance of same-sex relationships that conflicted with Catholic doctrine.

A decade later, during Francis’s pontificate, he acknowledged Francis’s call for a more inclusive church, and said he did not want people excluded just on the basis of their lifestyle.

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—with AAP