Even if you’re not a Catholic, it was hard not to get swept up in the excitement of the election of a new pope. Last Thursday evening, May 8, over 100,000 people jammed into St. Peter’s Square in Rome, waiting for white smoke from the Sistine Chapel to signal the election of a successor to Pope Francis, who died on Easter Monday, April 21. I certainly did.
It’s not how I planned to end my four weeks of study in Italy. After a month of intensive Italian language classes in Bologna, I had scheduled a quick trip to Rome, before heading back to Washington, just to see the magnificent new Caravaggio show at the Palazzo Barberini. Then Pope Francis died. Leaders of the Catholic Church from all over the world gathered in Rome for his funeral, and the conclave of cardinals to elect Francis’s successor was announced to begin on May 7, my last day of class in Bologna. Suddenly, going to Rome had a whole new focus.
Most of the crowd in St. Peter’s last Thursday evening had been there a long time. Some waited for days to see the white smoke. Some waited for hours. I waited for ten minutes. Arriving from Bologna by train, I checked into my hotel, then headed right to the Vatican, made my way up to the front of the crowd and checked my watch. It was 6:02 p.m.
Ten minutes later, the little chimney suddenly started coughing white smoke and the crowd went absolutely wild. Nobody knew who the new pope was, they just knew there was one. And all around me people were applauding, cheering in all different languages, jumping up and down, waving every flag under the sun, hugging total strangers, many openly weeping with joy — while the bells of St. Peter’s thundered nonstop over the crowd. I don’t have to say that I’ve never experienced anything like it, and never will again.
But, still, two big questions about the papacy remained unanswered: Who would be chosen as new pope? And would he continue the inclusive, progressive direction of the church set by Pope Francis? Or would he, as archconservative American cardinals hoped and plotted, return the church to the tight, closed-shop days of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI?
“Habemus Papam.” One hour later, we had the answer to the first question. Robert Prevost. At which point the crowd gasped a collective, giant: “Who?” Indeed, while Prevost had been occasionally named among the “papabile,” or papal contenders, he was never at the top of the list. Reporters focused on Cardinals Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines, Matteo Zuppi from Bologna, Jean-Marc Aveline from Marseille, or Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin. Conservatives were promoting Cardinal Peter Erdo of Hungary. And, honestly, almost nobody expected an American.
But it didn’t take long before Prevost gave some pretty strong hints at answering the second question: what kind of Pope he would be. If nothing else, his choice of the name Leo XIV gave it away. Prevost didn’t pick that name out of a hat. As he told his fellow cardinals the next day, he chose Leo XIV to honor the great Pope Leo XIII who, in his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, put the church squarely on the side of working families: declaring the rights of workers to a fair wage, safe working conditions, and the formation of labor unions. In that tradition, Pope Francis had made social justice a focus of his papacy. The new pope wanted everyone to know it will be his priority, too.
And then, dashing the hopes of conservatives that the church would abandon some of the bold initiatives undertaken by Pope Francis, the new Pope Leo XIV, in his first words as pontiff, went out of his way to praise Pope Francis and vow to continue his work. Clearly, Pope Leo XIV is a disciple of Pope Francis. He could just as well have taken the name Francis II.
So, once again, history was made in Rome. As a bridge-builder, peacemaker and champion of the poor, Pope Leo XIV is just the kind of person the Catholic Church needs as a leader in these troubled times. But I came away from Rome feeling that Pope Leo’s election is much more important than that. He may be just what the whole world needs in these troubled times, too. As one American political leader tries to divide and destroy the world, maybe one American moral leader can save it.
Bill Press is host of “The Bill Press Pod.” He is the author of “From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire.”
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