“No one makes drama like the only Catholic and Apostolic Church,” said Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, Soon after emerging from the conclave, he elected Pope Leo XIV on Thursday.
The rapid decision made about 33 hours after the sistine chapel doors closed and the cardinals were kidnapped, it was a sign that they probably entered the conclave with enough unit around the decision to continue Francisco’s legacy that they did not need to spend days of reversing a new direction to the Vatican.
In the weeks before the conclave, Cardinal Joseph Tobin, a Newark archbishop, said at a joint press conference with five other American cardinals on Friday. “We hear each other. What does the church need? What does the world need? What do we expect? What are we dreaming of?”
Leo, previously Cardinal Robert Prevost, a US native with Peruvian citizenship and deep ties with Latin America, is described by the Vatican as the “Second Pope of the Americas”, to Francis first. He is known to be close to the late Pontiff, both in his daily negotiations in the Vatican and ideologically.
Like Francis, Leo is known for his concern for the poor and marginalized, and in his first Sunday blessing as Pope, cited Francis and asked him to cease in Ukraine and Gaza, the subjects of Francis’s final message to the world.
The Conclave is involved in secret, and many of the negotiations that lead him to stay in the shadows, but since the end of the conclave, some cardinals have offered glimpses to what happened in the hours that led to Leo’s election.
Since the doors of the Sistine Chapel close, the cardinals oath “absolute and perpetual confidentiality”, as well as the entire Vatican team that helps them, including cooks, cleaning products and drivers. Cell phones are confiscated, an old reason for digital detox that at least one cardinal, Vincent Nichols, the Westminster Archbishop, appreciated for giving him “more time in my hands just to pray, just to reflect, just to be quiet, rather than constantly agitated,” he told BBC.
On the first night, the cardinals voted in the first round, but the black smoke climbed the chimney, which means no pope was chosen.
The cardinals were postponed at night to Santa Marta, the hostel was most of them – and eating. Cardinal Wilton Gregory said that “a lot of dialogue box occurred at mealtime, coffee breaks at those times when you can get involved in smaller groups.”
“The only method is the human method, to talk to another, dialogue, to listen to each other,” said Cardinal Robert McELROY, Washington archbishop, about the conversations that eventually lead to most of the two thirds needed to elect a Pope.
The next morning, the cardinals returned to the Sistine Chapel and two more banknotes were thrown, but the black smoke came again.
“The vote is like watching a glacier movement, but sometimes glaciers under stress mover much faster,” said Tobin.
Despite wide speculation about Pabalili after Francisco’s death, since the conclave began, we do not know who the other pioneers were or why they were left behind. But dolan He told CNN that the name of Prevost began to emerge from relative obscurity even before the beginning of the conclave. And he continued to check with his brother Cardinals to the conclave.
“It was not that he got up and made this overwhelming speech that was impressed,” said Gregory. “I don’t remember any specific intervention, but I believe it has been very effective in minor group conversations.”
And while the passions in past centuries can stretch for weeks, Prevost elections began to take shape on the second day.
Or, as Gregory framed him: “There was a great movement on the second day, a great movement within the body that was there and there was nothing but God’s grace moving us toward this consensus.”
“What an experiment is that it all starts in politics and ends Mystic,” added Mcelroy.
Tobin remembered the moment after voting. “I came back and took a look at Bob, and because his name was floating, and he had his head in his hands,” he said. “I was praying for him, because I couldn’t imagine what happens to a human being when you are facing something like that.”
During a press conference on Saturday, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, from the Philippines, considered one of Pope’s top candidates, said he was sitting next to Prevost.
In the minutes after his election, when the new Pope was panting the air when the weight of his new role descended over him, Tagle said he asked if he wanted a piece of candy. Prevost accepted and Tagle pulled one of a pocket under the cloak of his cardinal, “this is my first act of charity,” he said, Predost said, playing, “to our new holy father.”
Soon after, Prevost emerged on the porch of St. Peter’s Basilica as Pope Leo XIV, proof of an efficient and successful conclave.
“This was not our first rodeo,” said Dolan. “We went through 268 times.”