Vatican City – It was as if the square could speak with one voice: “Leone! Leone! Leone!”
Thousands of people in Saint-Pierre chanted in Chorus the name adopted by Robert Prevost while he went up in the papacy on Thursday: Leo XIV.
An hour and a half earlier, White Smoke had elected the headquarters of the Sistine Chapel, announcing that a cardinal conclave had elected a new leader for the 1.4 billion Catholics in the world.
Now it was time to meet Pope Leo himself. A solemn silence fell into the square. The faithful were waiting to hear the first message of the Pope, which would set the tone for its papacy.
“Peace be upon you,” said Leo XIV, appearing on the central balcony of the Saint-Pierre basilica.
He began to repeat a blessing pronounced by his late predecessor, Pope Francis, a few weeks earlier: “God loves us, God loves everyone, and evil will not prevail. We are in the hands of God. “
It was a narrowly watched moment, with ha-Hatted cardinals coming out of the nearby windows to have a first overview of the newly created pontiff.
Pope Leo XIV was elected the second day of the conclave, and his opening remarks as a leader reported continuity with Francis, who died on April 21 at the age of 88. But the experts say that it is likely to travel an average path, between the promotion of the inclusive agenda of Francis and the adoption of the Vatican tradition.
“Peace” was one of the most used words in his brief speech – a choice intended to echo the words that Jesus pronounced after Easter, as explained by Vatican Matteo Bruni during a press briefing.
Leo XIV called on Catholics to seek “disarmed peace and disarming peace” by “dialogue” and “build bridges”, in a brief heavy discourse with themes of unity.
“Well done! That’s what we need!” A member of the public public has shouted while the new pope spoke.
Another Kasper Mihalak, 29, from Denmark, was pressed in the middle of the crowd in the hope of seeing the first North American pope.
“I’m really excited. Cardinal Prevost, now Leo XIV – It’s going to be incredible! He said a lot about peace during his speech. I think the world now needs it,” said Mihalak.
Rosaria Venuto could barely hold back her tears. Early in the morning, she picked up her two children and hunted ASCOLI Satriano four hours, a small town in the South of Italy in Pouilles, to be on Place Saint-Pierre.
“I am deeply moved to have the chance to be here and to live this joy and to be a small part of this historic event,” she said.
His own man
Born in Chicago, a city in the Midwest in the United States, Leo XIV spent more than two decades in Peru, where he acquired double citizenship.
There, he worked in some of the poorest regions of Peru, and he finally became the bishop of Chiclayo, in the agricultural north of the country. Then, in 2023, Pope Francis appointed him to lead a powerful office that manages bishops around the world.
Phil Pullella, an expert from the Vatican who has covered the papacy for more than four decades, said that the background offers a certain degree of continuity with Francis, originally from Argentina and pleaded against poverty.
“He knows poverty in Latin America,” said Pullella about Leo XIV. “So, it’s not the same thing as if they had elected a New York cardinal, for example.”
This continuity was probably appreciated by the Vatican conservative camps, as well as by the liberal camps, added Pullella.
“He comes from the rich world, but he has first witnessed the problems of the world South in a poor country,” he said.
However, Pullella noted that the way Leo XIV dressed showed that “he will be his own man”.
Instead of the simple white strain that Pope Francis wore in 2013 when he was elected, Leo XIII added a traditional red cape on his vest, symbolizing the spiritual and temporal powers of his office.
“In a sense, he returns a little to this kind of tradition,” said Pullella. “He would not have been elected if he had not had the votes of the conservative block.”
A unifying figure
The election of Leo XIV surprised a lot. Many observers were betting on a new pope per night, but few expected only three voting cycles.
The crowd was amazed when White Smoke started out of the little fireplace at the start of the evening, around 6:09 p.m. local time (4:00 p.m. GMT).
It was the signal that – out of the 133 cardinals under the age of 80 which were eligible to vote – a candidate had received the majority of two thirds had to become a pope.
This year’s conclave had the distinction of being the most international in the history of the Vatican: the cardinals participating were from more than 70 countries, representing divergent opinions for the future of the Catholic Church.
Diversity was part of the inheritance of Pope Francis, who appointed cardinals from under-represented countries like Laos and Haiti to widen the world’s world attraction.
Francis spent 12 years at the head of the Catholic church, shaking the establishment by adopting a distinct style and tone, focused on austerity and plea for marginalized populations.
The efforts of the late Pope caused excitement among the reformers, but also dismay of the conservatives, who accused him of diluting the teachings of the Church. Experts say that this has led to a deep polarization within the Church, some members criticizing Francis for having decentralized the authority of the Church.
These experts underline that Leo XIV’s experience in Roman Curia – The Church government – was probably an argument of sale among the conservative voters in search of stability in the coming years.
What is in a name?
Although the first movements of Pope Leo XIV are not yet revealed, his choice of name is remarkable.
Bruni, the Vatican spokesman, noted that “Leo” is a direct reference to Pope Leo XIII, who adopted a new social doctrine at the end of the 19th century.
In 1891, Pope Leo XIII wrote an encyclical letter – or papal – known as the Novarum rerum. He called on Catholics to approach the “misery” confronted with the working class, in the midst of the upheavals of industrialization and political changes such as the unification of Italy.
This encyclical has marked a new radical approach to workers, and it sparked the creation of Catholic newspapers, social cooperatives and banks – a social movement that is still alive today.
Bruni said that the current Pope Leo hoped to draw a parallel at that time, with his technological revolutions.
“It is not an occasional reference to men and women of their work at a moment of artificial intelligence,” said Bruni.
Robert Orsi, professor of religious studies at the Northwestern University, said that the choice of name could also mean other historical parallels.
Leo XIII “strongly laid a movement called Americanism,” said Orsi.
“This movement was a kind of nationalist impulse within Catholicism, the national churches claiming to have their own identity, their own ways of doing special,” he explained. “And I think that by choosing the name of Leo XIV, this pope undoubtedly reported a return to global Catholicism.”
Pullella also thinks that it should be noted that, while Leo XIV mentioned his parishioners in Peru, he avoided highlighting his links with the United States.
“I think it is very important that he did not make a cry in the United States. He didn’t say, “I’m from America”. He was not talking in English, “said Pullella.
This sent a message that “it does not belong to the United States,” added Pullella. Leo XIV has already criticized the administration of US President Donald Trump on questions like nationalism and migration, just like the late Pope Francis.
However, Orsi predicted that the Vatican under the new Pope Leo would be “subtle and wise” in the way he treats with Trump in the years to come.
