Category: Diocese of Scranton News

CHICAGO (OSV News) – “In honor of Pope Leo XIV, I’m going to have a thin crust pizza,” said Augustinian seminarian Brother Nathan Fernandes, a former chef at a fine dining Italian restaurant, in a tongue-in-cheek nod to the Chicago-born pope’s now permanent home in Rome.

Best known to this year’s set of seminarians from the Augustinian Midwest Province as Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, the native Chicagoan had just been elected pope the day before, on May 8, and the seminarians were taking a breather from the media frenzy that had descended on their formation house’s quiet block in Chicago’s Hyde Park.

But as details of Pope Leo’s past life come to light one thing, many are struck by his Chicago roots and his Chicago-ness.

Brother Nathan, a Canadian, told OSV News he knows in Chicago he’s swimming against the tide of deep-dish pizza that is a big part of this town’s signature fare.

And it’s a tide that Louis Prevost said he believes his youngest brother, Pope Leo XIV, still rides.

“I think it’s a place like Giordano’s,” Louis Prevost told OSV News. On the phone from his home on the southwest coast of Florida, he referred to what he thought was his brother’s preference, one of the city’s popular deep dish pizza joints. He said, with his brother Rob going off to seminary at 13, at the same time that he was drafted to the military, he remembered more of the pope’s childhood preferences.

“He liked cooking, he liked Italian food,” confirmed Augustinian Father John Lydon, a college classmate and longtime friend from Pope Leo’s missionary days in Peru. “After he studied at (Catholic Theological Union, graduating in 1982), he had gone to Italy for his doctoral degree in canon law. So he would prepare pizza for us.”

Father Lydon, the formator of the seminarians, stood at the sunlit front steps of the theologate where the pope used to be the formator in the early 2000s. He told OSV News the pizzas then-Father Prevost made were not deep dish.

“We were in a poor place, living more simply than you can imagine here in the United States. So you had to make the pizza go for a lot of people, the crust had to be thin. He liked, and we talked about, Chicago-style pizza. But in Peru in the ’90s … that would have been luxurious,” said the formator, himself a Canadian.

Louis Prevost, 73, said his “baby brother” ate just about everything that was placed in front of him, and still does today. He said among other typical Chicago food, Pope Leo would prefer a Chicago-style hotdog — no ketchup, which is usually on a poppy seed bun with onions and bright green pickle relish among other toppings. And he had just learned that another Chicago staple, the Italian beef sandwich, was being marketed with hot or sweet peppers as “The Leo” for a limited time at Portillo’s, a Chicago hotdog and sandwich chain. But he said he couldn’t recall if his brother was actually an Italian beef type.

He and his brothers grew up in a deeply Catholic home in a south suburb on the edge of Chicago, where the rosary was said every night before dinner. Louis Prevost said the family had fish on Fridays, which he himself “grew to not like.” Pope Leo, on the other hand, had “no problem with it,” and apparently, neither did the 69-year old have any problem with entirely exotic foods that he would tell his big brother about on the phone while traveling around the world as prior general of the Augustinians.

He described one occasion when then-Father Prevost, Augustinian prior general, ate a special delicacy at a restaurant with a delegation of leaders in an Asian country. It was a plate of moving seafood that he was told should be swallowed.

Louis Prevost, a retired chief petty officer with the Navy, said he had his own share of eating unfamiliar food. But he had to interrupt his brother’s story. “It’s one thing to eat fried calamari. But when they’re alive and you can feel them trying to save themselves, wriggling back up (your throat) … I was like, ‘Stop! Don’t tell me anymore!'” He said his brother simply took it with no complaints.

“They made him feel welcome and he accepted it gratefully, gracefully and continued in good graces with these people. … Who knows how much they spent to put that together for him and why would he (say no)? What would they think? Oh, no. He’s not that kind of guy,” said Louis Prevost.

Since the three boys were mostly tennis players, Louis Prevost said Pope Leo didn’t follow all the city’s big-name sports teams like the Chicago Bulls (basketball), nor the Bears (football) and certainly not the Cubs on the city’s Northside. “He was big into baseball” but “he was a big (White) Sox fan.” Years later in the late ’80s through the ’90s in Peru, his then-superior in the Augustinians’ vicariate, a fellow Southsider, said being so far from home, they dropped hardcore preferences and supported all Chicago teams, even the Cubs.

Louis Prevost described the family’s regular outings to distinctly Chicago destinations like yearly trips to State Street at Christmas time to look at the storefront of Marshall Field’s department store. For more than a century the famous displays of dolls and toy animals in motion depicted Christmas scenes. That would be followed by a meal at the Berghoff, an iconic German fine dining restaurant at the heart of downtown Chicago, where Louis said the restaurant offered special treats for children.

Louis Prevost said their father used to take them to Chicago landmarks that satisfied their curious children’s minds: the Museum of Science and Industry in Hyde Park, the Field Museum of Natural History and the Art Institute, both downtown. The eldest brother found art boring, but said his youngest brother most likely would have liked the Art Institute.

Louis Prevost pointed to his brother’s decades living outside of the U.S. in the developing world, as a missionary in Peru, and then in Rome, along with knowing multiple languages and extensive international travels visiting Augustinians, holding leadership roles assigned by the late Pope Francis, combined with a distinctly Chicago upbringing. He said, as a Catholic, he couldn’t think of a more well-rounded background for a pontiff as leader of the church now.

“He went to places where I didn’t expect there to be Catholics; China, Korea, Japan … India or even Pakistan. These places, ‘we have Augustinians there,'” he recalled his brother saying.”‘I have to go there to promote the faith’ and that’s what he did. He went to all these places, maybe some with a little trepidation, but he did it. And I look at it and think, OK, what does it take to be pope? Well, you ought to know the people you’re trying to shepherd, right?”

On a personal note, Father Thomas Joseph White, the American rector of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, told OSV News May 12 that “seeing the pope in a White Sox jersey at a 2005 World Series game in Chicago fills me with a mix of healthy spiritual joy and serious bemusement.”

“It’s a little soon to say, but I would predict that the people of Chicago are going to lose their minds because the pope is going to do something like say Mass in the White Sox stadium, and it’s going to be a White Sox fan as pope saying Mass in the stadium. And there’s going to be people dressed like the Blues Brothers holding up signs that say: ‘We’re on a mission from God.’ I think it’ll be, you know, very colorful.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Among his first messages, Pope Leo XIV expressed his intention to strengthen the Catholic Church’s ties with the Jewish community.

“Trusting in the assistance of the Almighty, I pledge to continue and strengthen the church’s dialogue and cooperation with the Jewish people in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council’s declaration ‘Nostra Aetate,'” the pope wrote in a message to Rabbi Noam Marans, director of interreligious affairs at the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

Promulgated 60 years ago, “Nostra Aetate” affirmed the Catholic Church’s spiritual kinship with the Jewish people and condemned all forms of anti-Semitism.

The pope’s message signed May 8 – the day of his election – was posted on the AJC’s X account May 13.

The AJC is an advocacy group that “stands up for Israel’s right to exist in peace and security; confronts antisemitism, no matter the source; and upholds the democratic values that unite Jews and our allies,” according to its website.

Although Pope Leo did not address the Israel-Hamas war explicitly after praying the “Regina Coeli” with pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square May 11, he called for an “immediate ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip.

“Let humanitarian aid be provided to the stricken civil population, and let all the hostages be freed,” he said.

Pope Leo also sent a personal message to Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, the chief rabbi of Rome, “informing him of his election as the new pontiff,” according to a statement posted May 13 on the Facebook page of Rome’s Jewish community.

In his message, the statement said, “Pope Leo XIV committed himself to continuing and strengthening the dialogue and cooperation of the church with the Jewish people in the spirit of the Vatican II declaration ‘Nostra Aetate.'”

“The chief rabbi of Rome, who will be present at the celebration of the inauguration of the pontificate (May 18), welcomed with satisfaction and gratitude the words addressed to him by the new pope,” the statement added.

Jews have lived in Rome since long before Christ was born, and centuries of interaction between the city’s Jewish community and the popes means Jewish-Vatican relations in the city have a unique history, much of it sad.

In 2010, when Pope Benedict XVI visited the Rome synagogue, the staff of the Jewish Museum of Rome, located in the synagogue complex, planned a special exhibit illustrating part of that history.

The centerpiece of the exhibit was comprised of 14 decorative panels made by Jewish artists to mark the inauguration of the pontificates of Popes Clement XII, Clement XIII, Clement XIV and Pius VI in the 1700s.

For hundreds of years, the Jewish community was obliged to participate in the ceremonies surrounding the enthronement of new popes — often in a humiliating manner.

Various groups in the city were assigned to decorate different sections of the pope’s route between the Vatican and the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the pope’s cathedral. The Jewish community was responsible for the stretch of road between the Colosseum and the Arch of Titus, which celebrates the Roman Empire’s victory over the Jews of Jerusalem in the first century. The Roman victory included the destruction of the Temple, Judaism’s holiest site, and the triumphal arch depicts Roman soldiers carrying off the menorah and other Jewish liturgical items.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Leo XIV’s devotion to St. Augustine, his life and ministry as a member of the Augustinian order and his focus on the unity of the church are reflected in his episcopal motto and coat of arms.

When he appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica shortly after his election May 8, he introduced himself as “an Augustinian, a son of St. Augustine.”

And he explained that the cardinals who elected him “have chosen me to be the Successor of Peter and to walk together with you as a Church, united, ever pursuing peace and justice, ever seeking to act as men and women faithful to Jesus Christ, in order to proclaim the Gospel without fear, to be missionaries.”

His episcopal motto is, “In Illo uno unum,” or literally “In the One, we are one.”

Vatican News explained that the phrase is taken from St. Augustine’s “Exposition on Psalm 127,” where he explains that “although we Christians are many, in the one Christ we are one.”

As a cardinal, he told Vatican News in 2023, “As can be seen from my episcopal motto, unity and communion are truly part of the charism of the Order of St. Augustine, and also of my way of acting and thinking.”

“I believe it is very important to promote communion in the church, and we know well that communion, participation and mission are the three keywords of the Synod” of Bishops on synodality, he said. “So, as an Augustinian, for me promoting unity and communion is fundamental.”

His shield, now topped by a miter instead of the red galero hat on the shield of cardinals, is divided diagonally into two. The upper half features a blue background with a white lily or fleur-de-lis, symbolizing the Virgin Mary, but also his French heritage.

The lower half of the shield has a light background and displays an image common to the religious orders named after and inspired by St. Augustine: a closed book with a heart pierced by an arrow.

Vatican News said, “This is a direct reference to the conversion experience of St. Augustine himself, who described his personal encounter with God’s word using the phrase: ‘Vulnerasti cor meum verbo tuo’ — ‘You have pierced my heart with your Word.'”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Pope Leo XIV for his support of a just and lasting peace in Ukraine, and he invited the newly-elected pontiff to visit the war-torn nation.

“I spoke with Pope Leo XIV. It was our first conversation, but already a very warm and truly substantive one,” the president said on his X account May 12. The Vatican press office confirmed the call took place but would not specify who initiated the phone call.

“I invited His Holiness to make an apostolic visit to Ukraine. Such a visit would bring real hope to all believers and to all our people,” he said on X.

The president said he “thanked His Holiness for his support of Ukraine and all our people. We deeply value his words about the need to achieve a just and lasting peace for our country and the release of prisoners. We also discussed the thousands of Ukrainian children deported by Russia. Ukraine counts on the Vatican’s assistance in bringing them home to their families.”

At his first “Regina Coeli” address from the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica May 11, Pope Leo prayed for the people of Ukraine, saying, “May everything possible be done to achieve as soon as possible an authentic, just and lasting peace. May all prisoners be freed, and may the children return to their families.” Ukraine says thousands of children have been forcibly taken to Russia during the war.

Zelenskyy said on X that he also told the pope about the agreement between Ukraine and Western nations calling for “a full and unconditional ceasefire for at least 30 days” beginning May 12.

He told Pope Leo that Ukraine remains ready for “further negotiations in any format, including direct talks — a position we have repeatedly emphasized. Ukraine wants to end this war and is doing everything to achieve that. We now await similar steps from Russia.”

Zelenskyy said the two leaders “agreed to stay in contact and plan (an) in-person meeting in the near future.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Leo XIV asked journalists to be peacemakers by shunning prejudice and anger in their reporting, and he called for the release of journalists imprisoned for their work.

“The suffering of these imprisoned journalists challenges the conscience of nations and the international community, calling on all of us to safeguard the precious gift of free speech and of the press,” the pope said May 12.

Not counting his meeting May 10 with the College of Cardinals, Pope Leo’s first special audience was reserved for members of the media who covered his election and the death of Pope Francis.

“Thank you for the work you have done and continue to do in these days, which is truly a time of grace for the church,” he told the media representatives and staff of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication.

The new pope particularly thanked reporters “for what you have done to move beyond stereotypes and clichés through which we often interpret Christian life and the life of the church itself.”

After giving his speech and his apostolic blessing, the pope personally greeted dozens of journalists. One asked if he would be traveling home to the United States soon, the pope responded, “I don’t think so.”

Asked about the May 13 feast of Our Lady of Fatima, Pope Leo, referring to himself, said, “Cardinal Prevost had planned to go, but the plans changed.”

Another reporter asked the pope if he planned to fulfill Pope Francis’ promise of going to Turkey this year to celebrate the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea with Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. The council was held in 325 in what is now Iznik, Turkey.

“We are preparing for it,” the pope responded. But he did not say when the trip would be.

In his formal talk, Pope Leo focused on how the media can promote division and discord or peace.

The Gospel beatitude, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” is a challenge for everyone, he said, but especially for the media. It calls “each one of you to strive for a different kind of communication, one that does not seek consensus at all costs, does not use aggressive words, does not follow the culture of competition and never separates the search for truth from the love with which we must humbly seek it.”

“Peace begins with each one of us: in the way we look at others, listen to others and speak about others,” he said. “In this sense, the way we communicate is of fundamental importance: we must say ‘no’ to the war of words and images, we must reject the paradigm of war.”

The words and style journalists use are “crucial,” he said, because communication is not only about transmitting information; it should create a culture and “human and digital environments that become spaces for dialogue and discussion.”

“We do not need loud, forceful communication, but rather communication that is capable of listening and of gathering the voices of the weak who have no voice,” he said.

“Let us disarm words and we will help to disarm the world,” he said. “Disarmed and disarming communication allows us to share a different view of the world and to act in a manner consistent with our human dignity.”

“You are at the forefront of reporting on conflicts and aspirations for peace, on situations of injustice and poverty and on the silent work of so many people striving to create a better world,” he told the reporters. “For this reason, I ask you to choose consciously and courageously the path of communication in favor of peace.”

The pope had told members of the College of Cardinals that he chose his name in homage to Pope Leo XIII, recognizing the need to renew Catholic social teaching to face today’s new industrial revolution and the developments of artificial intelligence “that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor.”

That technology, he told the reporters, poses special challenges for them. “I am thinking in particular of artificial intelligence, with its immense potential, which nevertheless requires responsibility and discernment in order to ensure that it can be used for the good of all, so that it can benefit all of humanity.”

ROME (OSV News) – When Catholics heard on May 8 the new pope had chosen the name Leo XIV, the thoughts of many turned immediately to Leo XIII, the last pope to bear the name.

That most recent Leo, who served as pope from 1878 to 1903, is especially remembered for articulating the church’s teaching on social justice in a rapidly changing and ever industrialized society. He was also interested in promoting the political, theological and philosophical vision of St. Augustine, the namesake and inspiration of the new pope’s religious congregation, and St. Thomas Aquinas.

Leo XIII, was also known as “the Rosary Pope” for his unmatched 11 encyclical letters on Marian devotion.

Aside from Leo XIII, himself not canonized, there have been 12 others who share a name with the new pope, and five of those predecessors attained the heights of sanctity and have been proclaimed saints.

The first pope to bear the name, Pope Leo the Great (c. 400-461), truly had the character of a lion, from which the familiar papal name draws its meaning. A bold defender of the faith amid times of controversy and division, Leo is also remembered for successfully persuading Attila the Hun to spare Italy from an intended invasion of Italy. In doing so, Leo the Great is credited as one of the most influential patristic-era popes, who greatly increased the church’s influence and authority.

Leo the Great was a steady and sure leader amid many threats to the peace and stability of Roman culture at his time, including famine, disease, poverty and a rise in immigration.

His homilies and writings are evidence of the teaching that helped the church overcome various Christological controversies in the fifth century, in the lead up to the Council of Chalcedon in 451. For his doctrinal clarity and ability to articulate unity, Leo the Great was declared a doctor of the church in 1754, one of only two popes so designated.

Pope Benedict XVI said that Leo the Great taught the church “to believe in Christ, true God and true Man, and to implement this faith every day in action for peace and love of neighbor.”

St. Leo II (611-683), who was elected Peter’s successor two centuries later, only reigned for just under nine months. Remembered for a love of music and a unique skill for preaching, Leo II’s brief pontificate is best remembered today through various hymns he composed for the Liturgy of the Hours.

St. Leo III, who reigned as pope for nearly two decades before his death in 816, crowned Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor in 800. This honor stemmed from, no doubt, Leo’s gratitude for Charlemagne’s protection of him after an attack on his reputation and his life.

St. Leo IV, whose eight-year pontificate ended in 855, restored several churches in Rome after Muslim invaders plundered the sacred structures. The Italian Renaissance painter Raphael commemorated various scenes associated with Leo IV’s time in office. One fresco called “Battle of Ostia” recalls how Leo IV assembled various naval fleets to defend the ancient port at the mouth of Rome’s Tiber River. Another, “The Fire in the Borgo” depicts how Leo’s blessing extinguished a fire near the Vatican in 847.

The relics of popes Leo II, Leo III and Leo IV are enshrined in an altar in St. Peter’s Basilica, close to another altar that contains the relics of St. Leo the Great.

The most recently sainted Leo, St. Leo IX (1002-1054), brought reform to the church, reiterating mandatory clerical celibacy and defending the church’s belief in Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist amid scandal.

A native of modern-day France, Leo IX was allegedly born with red crosses marking his entire body, considered by some as a form of the stigmata. Divisions between Eastern and Western halves of the church intensified during his pontificate, with the Great Schism coming amid the interregnum just after his death.

The relics of St. Leo IX are also separately enshrined in an altar in St. Peter’s Basilica.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – With a huge and festive crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Leo XIV led his first Sunday recitation of the “Regina Coeli” prayer and urged all Catholics to pray for vocations, especially to the priesthood and religious life.

Before the pope appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica May 11, the crowd was entertained by dozens of marching bands and folkloristic dance troupes who had marched into the square after attending an outdoor Mass for the Jubilee of Bands and Popular Entertainment.

Pope Leo also noted that it was Mother’s Day in Italy, the United States and elsewhere. “I send a special greeting to all mothers with a prayer for them and for those who are already in heaven,” he said. “Happy holiday to all moms!”

Italian officials estimated 100,000 people were in St. Peter’s Square or on the surrounding streets to join the new pope for the midday prayer.

In his main address, Pope Leo said it was a “gift” to lead the crowd for the first time on the Sunday when the church proclaims a passage from John 10 “where Jesus reveals himself as the true Shepherd, who knows and loves his sheep and gives his life for them.”

It also is the day the Catholic Church offers special prayers for vocations, especially to the priesthood and religious life.

“It is important that young men and women on their vocational journey find acceptance, listening and encouragement in their communities, and that they can look up to credible models of generous dedication to God and to their brothers and sisters,” the pope said.

Noting that Pope Francis had released a message in March in preparation for the day of prayer, Pope Leo told the crowd, “Let us take up the invitation that Pope Francis left us in his message for today: the invitation to welcome and accompany young people.”

“And let us ask our heavenly Father to assist us in living in service to one another, each according to his or her state of life, shepherds after his own heart, capable of helping one another to walk in love and truth,” the new pope said.

Setting aside his prepared text, he told young people in the square, “Do not be afraid! Welcome the call of the church and of Christ the Lord.”

After reciting the “Regina Coeli,” he mentioned how the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe was celebrated May 8, the day of his election.

While that is reason to celebrate, he said, “‘the Third World War is being fought piecemeal,’ as Pope Francis often said. I, too, appeal to the leaders of the world, repeating this ever-relevant plea: Never again war!”

Pope Leo prayed for the people of Ukraine, saying, “May everything possible be done to achieve as soon as possible an authentic, just and lasting peace. May all prisoners be freed, and may the children return to their families.” Ukraine says thousands of children have been forcibly taken to Russia during the war.

The pope also told the crowd, “I am deeply saddened by what is happening in the Gaza Strip. Let the fighting cease immediately. Humanitarian aid must be given to the exhausted civilian population, and all hostages must be released.”

He praised India and Pakistan for reaching a ceasefire agreement, but said, “But how many other conflicts are there in the world?”

Pope Leo entrusted his “heartfelt appeal” for peace to Mary, “Queen of Peace, that she may present it to the Lord Jesus to obtain for us the miracle of peace.”

Earlier in the day, Pope Leo had celebrated Mass at an altar near the tomb of St. Peter in the grotto of St. Peter’s Basilica. Father Alejandro Moral Anton, the prior general of the Order of St. Augustine, to which the pope belonged, was the principal celebrant.

Afterward, the Vatican press office said, he stopped to pray at the tombs of popes who are buried in the grotto.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Less than 48 hours after being elected, Pope Leo XIV got in the front seat of a minivan and traveled 40 miles southeast from the Vatican to pray at a Marian shrine cared for by his Augustinian confreres.

And on his way back to the Vatican May 10, he went to Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major, stopping to pray at the tomb of Pope Francis and before the icon of Mary “Salus Populi Romani” (health of the Roman people).

The Vatican press office said he arrived at the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Genazzano just after 4 p.m. local time. The shrine is famous for a small fresco of Mary holding the infant Jesus.

A description on a website of Catholic shrines says, “The Christ Child nestles close to his mother. Mary supports Jesus with her left arm. She bends her head toward him, and their cheeks touch tenderly.”

The ancient image is “dear to the order” of Augustinians and was beloved by Pope Leo XIII, whom the new pope is named after, the press office said.

Several hundred people cheered the pope’s arrival at the shrine, and he greeted many of them before going into the shrine to greet the friars. “He stopped in prayer in front of the altar and then in front of the image of the Virgin where he and those present recited the prayer of St. John Paul II to Our Lady of Good Counsel.”

St. John Paul had visited the shrine in April 1993.

The prayer assures Mary that the faithful turn to her with “their hopes and sorrows, their desires and needs, their many tears shed and their yearning for a better future. Turn, O Mother, your gaze upon this people, accept their generous intentions, accompany them on their journey toward a future of justice, solidarity and peace.”

Pope Leo told those gathered at the shrine, “I wanted so much to come here in these first days of the new ministry that the church has given me” to seek Mary’s help “to carry out this mission as Successor of Peter.”

The spoke of his “trust in the Mother of Good Counsel,” who has been a companion of “light, wisdom.”

Before leaving the town, he told the people that the shrine and the Marian image are “a great gift” that carries with it a responsibility. “Just as our Mother never abandons her children, you must remain faithful to her.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Catholic community is alive, beautiful and strong, and it is up to its pastors to protect and nourish the faithful and to help bring God’s hope to the whole world, Pope Leo XIV said.

For that reason, the pope invited the cardinals “to renew together today our complete commitment to the path that the universal church has now followed for decades in the wake of the Second Vatican Council,” and that “Pope Francis masterfully and concretely set it forth in the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”), he said May 10, in his first formal speech to the College of Cardinals.

He also said that he chose his name in homage to Pope Leo XIII, recognizing the need to renew Catholic social teaching to face today’s new industrial revolution and the developments of artificial intelligence “that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor.”

The pope, who was elected in a conclave of 133 cardinal electors on the fourth ballot May 8, met with members of the college, including non-electors, in the New Synod Hall at the Vatican.

Pope Leo told the cardinals that after his “short talk with some reflections,” which the Vatican press office published, they would have “a sort of dialogue,” which many of them had asked for, “to hear what advice, suggestions, proposals, concrete things, which have already been discussed in the days leading up to the conclave.” Those discussions in the closed-door meeting were not published.

In the text that was released, the pope said the events of the past three weeks, beginning with Pope Francis’ final days, his death and funeral, have allowed them “to see the beauty and feel the strength of this immense community, which with such affection and devotion has greeted and mourned its shepherd, accompanying him with faith and prayer at the time of his final encounter with the Lord.”

“We have seen the true grandeur of the church, which is alive in the rich variety of her members in union with her one head, Christ,” Pope Leo said.

The Catholic Church is “the womb from which we were born and at the same time the flock, the field entrusted to us to protect and cultivate, to nourish with the sacraments of salvation and to make fruitful by our sowing the seed of the Word, so that, steadfast in one accord and enthusiastic in mission, she may press forward, like the Israelites in the desert, in the shadow of the cloud and in the light of God’s fire,” he said.

Because of that, the pope asked the cardinals to renew together their “complete commitment” to the church’s post-Vatican II journey, which was detailed in Pope Francis’ 2013 apostolic exhortation on the proclamation of the Gospel in today’s world.

“I would like to highlight several fundamental points” from the document, he said: “the return to the primacy of Christ in proclamation; the missionary conversion of the entire Christian community; growth in collegiality and synodality; attention to the ‘sensus fidei’ (the people of God’s sense of the faith), especially in its most authentic and inclusive forms, such as popular piety; loving care for the least and the rejected; courageous and trusting dialogue with the contemporary world in its various components and realities.”

“Sensing myself called to continue in this same path, I chose to take the name Leo XIV” for several reasons, he said, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII, “in his historic encyclical ‘Rerum Novarum’ addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution.”

Today, the church continues to offer “everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor,” he added.

Pope Leo XIV, the first pope from the United States, said that, “beginning with St. Peter and up to myself, his unworthy successor, the pope has been a humble servant of God and of his brothers and sisters, and nothing more than this.”

Many popes, and most recently Pope Francis, demonstrated this with his “complete dedication to service and to sober simplicity of life, his abandonment to God throughout his ministry and his serene trust at the moment of his return to the Father’s house,” he said.

“Let us take up this precious legacy and continue on the journey, inspired by the same hope that is born of faith,” he said, reminding the cardinals that it is “the risen Lord, present among us, who protects and guides the church, and continues to fill her with hope.”

“It is up to us to be docile listeners to his voice and faithful ministers of his plan of salvation, mindful that God loves to communicate himself, not in the roar of thunder and earthquakes, but in the ‘whisper of a gentle breeze’ or, as some translate it, in a ‘sound of sheer silence,'” he said.

“It is this essential and important encounter to which we must guide and accompany all the holy people of God entrusted to our care,” he said.

Thanking the cardinals for their role as the pope’s closest collaborators, he said their presence has proven to be “a great comfort to me in accepting a yoke clearly far beyond my own limited powers, as it would be for any of us.”

God, too, “will not leave me alone in bearing its responsibility,” he said, and he knew he would also be able to count on the closeness of “so many of our brothers and sisters throughout the world who believe in God, love the church and support the vicar of Christ by their prayers and good works.”

He concluded his remarks by embracing the hope St. Paul VI expressed at the inauguration of his Petrine ministry in 1963 and he invited them to do the same.

St. Paul prayed that hope “pass over the whole world like a great flame of faith and love kindled in all men and women of goodwill. May it shed light on paths of mutual cooperation and bless humanity abundantly, now and always, with the very strength of God, without whose help nothing is valid, nothing is holy,” he said, quoting the saint.

ROME (CNS) – While it is interesting and perhaps even a point of pride that the new Pope Leo XIV was born in the United States, most of the U.S.-based cardinals who participated in the conclave that elected him said nationality was not a factor.

“I think the impact of him being an American was almost negligible in the deliberations of the conclave and surprisingly so,” Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of Washington told reporters May 9 during a news conference at the Pontifical North American College in Rome.

“What surprised me was the real absence of that being a key question at all,” the cardinal said.

Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, retired archbishop of Galveston-Houston, told the reporters that while the cardinals chose a pope who is a U.S. citizen, “he’s really a citizen of the entire world since he has spent so much of his life, ministry, missionary work and zeal for Christ in South America,” mainly in Peru.

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York said, “The fact that he was born in the United States of America, boy, that’s a sense of pride and gratitude for us,” but the new pope is also a citizen of Peru. And he has work in the Roman Curia as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops for the past two years.

“He’s a citizen of the world,” Cardinal Dolan said.

“Where he comes from is now sort of a thing of the past. You know, Robert Francis Prevost is no longer around. It’s now Pope Leo,” the cardinal said. “He’s the pontiff of the church universal. Where he came from, (that’s) secondary.”

The cardinals were asked to what extent could people interpret the election of Pope Leo “as a reflection of the desire of the cardinals to offer a counterweight to the global influence of President Trump.”

Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory, the retired archbishop of Washington, said, “The cardinals were quite aware of things that have occurred in the United States, statements that have been made, political actions that have been taken.”

“But what the cardinals were concerned about primarily, at least from my conversations with them,” Cardinal Gregory said, “was, ‘Who among us can bring us together; who among us can strengthen the faith and bring the faith to places where it has grown weak, bring the faith to places where there seems to be less enthusiasm or appreciation of the common things that draw us together?'”

Cardinal Dolan responded, “It should not startle us that we would look to Pope Leo as a bridge builder. That’s what the Latin word ‘pontiff’ means. He’s a bridge builder. Will he want to build bridges with Donald Trump? I suppose, but he would want to build bridges with the leader of every nation. So, I don’t think at all that my brother cardinals would have thought of it as a conduit to any one person.”

The cardinals at the news conference all mentioned the cardinals going into the conclave looking for someone who could proclaim the Gospel and strengthen the unity of the church while also continuing the approach and projects of Pope Francis.

“We are looking for someone to follow the pathway of Francis, but we are not looking for a photocopy,” Cardinal McElroy said.

Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago, Pope Leo’s hometown, told reporters that the church does not speak of replacements for a bishop or pope, but of successors for them.

“That’s a very important distinction to make, and that is what we were looking for as well,” Cardinal Cupich said. The cardinals asked themselves, “Who could bring forward the not only the ministry and life and tradition of Francis, but everything that preceded him, especially from that pivotal moment of life in the church (that was) the Second Vatican Council.”

Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the papal nuncio to the United States, quoted the French poet Charles Peguy: “Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics.”

The conclave was the opposite, he said. In the days of preparation for the conclave, the media particularly had taken a political view of the election of the new pope.

“What I experienced was that everything begins in politics and ends in mysticism. This is what we lived” in the conclave, Cardinal Pierre said. The conclave began “in this kind of confusion” of languages, cultures and not knowing each other.

The only solution, he said, was to dialogue and listen to one another, setting aside prejudices and entering into a process of prayerful discernment.

Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, said he had known Pope Leo for 30 years; they were in Rome together in the late 1990s and early 2000s when Cardinal Tobin was superior general of the Redemptorists and Pope Leo was superior of the Augustinian friars. More recently, Cardinal Tobin served as a member of the Dicastery for Bishops, where then-Cardinal Robert F. Prevost was prefect.

Talking about the new pope’s international experience, Cardinal Tobin first referred to him as “Bob” and then corrected himself, “Pope Leo.”

Describing the new pope’s leadership style, Cardinal Tobin said, “I don’t think he’s one that likes to pick fights, but he is not one to back down if the cause is just. And I guess the last thing I’d say about Bob is that he really is a listener, and then he acts.”

Cardinal Tobin said that during the actual election in the Sistine Chapel, when he went up to cast his ballot as the outcome became clearer, he walked by then-Cardinal Prevost, “who had his head in his hands.”

“I was praying for him, because I couldn’t imagine what happens to a human being when you’re facing something like that. And then when he accepted it, it was like he was made for it,” the cardinal said. “All of the anguish or whatever was resolved by feeling — I think — that this wasn’t simply his saying yes to a proposal, but that God had made something clear, and he agreed with that.”