After burying Pope Francis, the cardinals chose another pope from the Americas to follow in his path, proving both that the “change of era” inaugurated by Francis is here to stay and that Latin America would still be a key source for the universal Church. Leo XIV is from the south suburbs of Chicago, “the descendant of immigrants, who in turn chose to emigrate,” as he put it to the Holy See ambassadors on May 16. He was referring to the decades he spent as a missionary and bishop in Peru. This is why the first U.S.-born pope is also the second from South America.
The quiet sixty-nine-year-old American, Robert Francis Prevost, friar of the Order of St. Augustine, slipped past the bookmakers and the pundits, quickly overtaking the Italian curial-establishment papabile, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, to be elected after only four ballots, on the afternoon of the second day of the conclave. As they emerged from the conclave, the cardinals were delighted, as if they had stumbled on a pearl of great price. They spoke of the atmosphere inside: the lighthearted peace in the Sistine Chapel, the sense of fraternity and unity back at the Santa Marta. They remarked on the freedom from the pressures and distractions of the internet that allowed them to settle prayerfully on the one man among them whom they believe God had chosen. They described how moving it had been to watch Prevost as his name was read out, over and over. Joseph Tobin, cardinal archbishop of Newark, who knows the new pope well—having been head of the Redemptorists in Rome when Prevost was there as the prior general of the Augustinians—said he “took a look at Bob” and saw that “he had his head in his hands.” At that moment, Tobin prayed for Prevost, “because I couldn’t imagine what happens to a human being when you face something like that.” Yet once Prevost was elected—and on this the cardinals are unanimous—he was remarkably calm, wholly at peace. Over the next few days, Rome was struck by how effortlessly Prevost became Leo.
What convinced the 133 cardinals, it turned out, had not been a great speech, but rather the way Prevost carried himself: he was humble, direct, synodal, and pastoral. Prevost would be a pope in the tradition of Francis, yet different in ways the cardinals regarded as necessary. They sought three particular qualities in the next pope. First, they wanted someone with experience of the universality of today’s Church, someone familiar with its breadth and complexity. Second, they were looking for someone who could bring the peace of Christ to the divisions within the Church and in the world at large. Third, they needed someone who could govern firmly but also in a more collegial manner than Francis did. The more they got to know Prevost, the more he emerged as the one who fit that profile.
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The young cardinal who heads the Filipino bishops’ conference, Pablo Virgilio David, said it was the pope as pontifex maximus, or “supreme bridge-builder,” that became a key topic for the cardinals in the ten days of private meetings prior to the conclave. He said Leo’s brief address from the loggia of St. Peter’s after his election was virtually a summary of their discussions. Peace was his theme, the disarming peace of Christ. Leo called for “a Church that builds bridges and encourages dialogue…a synodal Church.”
The next day, at Mass with the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel, Leo dwelt on the great responsibility entrusted to Peter, his mission to bear witness in a world that often mocks or despises Christian faith. Back in 2013, Prevost thought he would escape being made a bishop; ten years later, he hadn’t wanted to leave behind his diocese in Peru when Francis asked him to head the Dicastery for Bishops in Rome. But in the end, he saw the move to Rome as “a new opportunity to live a dimension of my life, which simply was always answering ‘Yes’ when asked to do a service,” he told Vatican News at that time. “With this spirit, I ended my mission in Peru, after eight and a half years as a bishop and almost twenty years as a missionary, to begin a new one in Rome.”
And now, when Cardinal Parolin asked Cardinal Prevost if he accepted his election as pope, he gave another, even more radical “Yes.” In his homily the next day, Pope Leo described Peter being led in chains to Rome, “the place of his imminent sacrifice,” and said anyone in the Church who exercises a ministry of authority would recognize that journey. He, too, was being called now “to disappear so that Christ may remain, to make oneself small so that He may be known and glorified (cf. John 3:30).”
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