The Cardinals, who chose a new Pope to lead the Roman Catholic Church, made the Sistine Chapel exhausted and hungry.
Meditation to start the conclave was dragged out, pushing the first vote deeper into Wednesday evening. It led to a decisive tally with three major candidates. They kept their oath of secret and returned to Casa Santa Marta, a guesthouse in which they were isolated without a cell phone, to talk.
At dinner, one gluten-free cardinal picked vegetables and the other cardinal shrugged on the simple fare, so they weighed their options. Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who ran the Vatican under Pope Francis, entered the Conclave as the front line, but did not receive overwhelming support during the vote. The Italians were split and some of the Cardinals in the Room were troubled by their failure to highlight the joint meetings that Francis prioritized to govern the church.
Hungary's Cardinal Peter Eld was supported by a coalition of conservatives, including African supporters, and had no way of building momentum among voters widely appointed by Francis.
By doing so, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevast, 69 – a surprisingly quiet American dark horse that appeared in the evening vote – as a source of special interest.
The missionary became the leader of the religious order, bishop of Peru, and a power player of the Vatican, and he checked many of the boxes that a wide range of Cardinals hoped to fill. His ability to come from two locations, North and South America, from two locations, pleased the cardinals of two continents. They liked what they heard when the high priest rang the Latin American cardinals who knew him well.
During dinner, the Cardinal shunned clear politics and conspiracy, the Cardinal said. By the next morning he had transformed into an unsuspecting juggernaut, leaving almost room for rival candidates and ideological camps.
“You start looking in the direction and saying, 'Oh, my goodness, I'm not going to use clothes' for my five days,” joked the Philippines' Cardinal Pablo Virgilio Sionco David. “It's going to be resolved very quickly.”
Interviews with more than a dozen Cards could leak so much due to the secret rules responsible for the excommunicative penalty, and accounts from Vatican insiders spoke about how Prevost Cardinal became Pope Leo XIV. A consensus scattering swift, stunning, taboos around Americans unfamiliar to many people outside the church came on Thursday among the unwieldy Cardinals colleges with many new members who didn't know each other. They had different interests, languages and priorities, but they had a single choice.
Building support
After Francis' death on April 21st, cardinals from around the world began to arrive in Rome. They joined powerful players from the Vatican who ran the church bureaucracy, including the Cardinal Prevost, which was supported by Francis.
Despite his intimate understanding of the Vatican, the Prevost Cardinal was still one of the beginners, and even for two years he was a cardinal. He then asked questions about Conclave.
He sought help from one of the reported frontrunners, the Philippines' Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle Cardinal.
“How does this work?” the American said. “I had experience with the Conclave,” said Cardinal Tugle.
Unlike the Tagle Cardinal, he also had no recognition of the names that appear to be necessary in the election among many new cardinals who knew little about each other. The Chicago-born Villanova graduate moved under the radar without a famous or obvious support base.
“I didn't even know his name,” said Cardinal David of the Philippines.
However, the Cardinal Prevost was not completely unknown. As a former leader of the Order of St. Augustine, active worldwide, and head of the Vatican office, which oversees bishops around the world, he developed strong connections and supporters. The first of them was Francis to put his career on a fast track. And in his decades in Peru, fluent Spanish and the leadership of the Latin American Pontifical Committee gave him a deep and decisive relationship on the continent.
“We know him pretty much. He's one of us,” said Cardinal Balthazar Enrique Pola Cardozo in Venezuela.
A few weeks before Conclave, Cardinals attended a series of private meetings to discuss concerns about the church's future. Unlike Francis, who made his mark with a brief speech that shared his vision for the Church, some Cardinals said Prevost Cardinal's remarks were not outstanding. “Like everyone else,” said Spain's Cardinal Juan Jose Omera.
The archbishop of Algiers, Cardinal Jean Paul Vesco of France, also could not recall what the Americans said, but he spoke to him on the sidelines of the meeting. This was important. Cardinal began to ask those who worked with the Americans to examine him, and found out he listened in groups and worked well. “I did the job,” Cardinal Besco said. “I have to vote. I need to know that person.”
US Cardinal Wilton Gregory also said that Prevost Cardinal was “very effectively” engaged in smaller group discussions with Cardinals.
He gained the strength of the Prevost Cardinal, especially as the Vatican's top division head, as he gained a reputation in Rome as a enthusiastically prepared, organized and organized collaborator.
“I just praise the way he holds meetings,” said Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of his hometown, Chicago. “So when you have people from different language groups and cultures, that's difficult. And you're trying to advise the Pope on who should be bishops, and you're listening to all those people.”
On Saturday, May 3rd, five days before Conclave, Cardinals drew a lot and assigned important roles. Of the 133 people who ultimately voted for attendees, 127 were selected to help run the daily meeting before the Prevost Cardinal was quarantined and voted on the start.
As different factions discussed at daily meetings on the future direction of the Church, the Cardinals of the Americas appeared to be united around him.
A straightforward and charming figure, New York's Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan said he wanted to get to know his fellow Americans better at breakfast.
German Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Muller noted the election base that appears to be formed, saying, “a significant number of cardinals from South America in North America.”
Venezuela's Cardinal said that Cardinals from Latin America and the US appeared to be on the same page about the Prevost Cardinal. “When you first have friendship,” he said. “It's all easy.”
The more the cardinals learned about the Cardinal Prevost, the more they liked them, Cardinals said. “Bob, this could be suggested to you,” Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, told Cardinal prevost just before the conclave began.
The Vincent Nichols Cardinal of England has had a lot of experience with the Prevost Cardinal. He had a world missionary, a heart of academic depth and knowledge. He ran the parish as a bishop, which brought him close contact with his parishioners, but also worked in Kylia, a Roman bureaucracy that helped him govern the church.
Cardinal Nichols said it did not escape the Cardinal, the Vatican's top diplomat, had deep experience alone in the church's bureaucracy, as Cardinal Parolin, was forced on his supporters both inside and outside the Conclave.
“We're not stupid,” he said.
I'll move my destiny soon
On Wednesday, after a long, strict procession to the Sistine Chapel, the Cards gathered in their assigned seats and made their vows. The door closed just before 6pm when the conclave started.
The first meditation, the gravitational remarks on the task at hand ran for about an hour, and Cardinal Parolin, who had been running the Conclave, asked if he would call it until the next morning and delay the first vote.
“We didn't have dinner, we didn't have any breaks — we had toilet breaks,” said Cardinal of the Philippines, but the group decided they wanted a vote.
Voting took place ongoing around 7:30pm, causing delays among the waiting crowds with no explanation in the outside world. It seemed that the Cardinals had already chosen the Pope, dressed as they would appear on the balcony.
Instead, the first vote of the night was equivalent to what the Spanish Cardinal Omera called “a little pre-voting.”
“In the first vote, there were several candidates who won a significant number of votes,” said South Korean press agency Yonghap, your Lazarus Cardinal. Vatican insiders said these candidates include Cardinals, Parolin, Eldo and Prebust.
At that time, Cardinals returned to the guesthouse and began discussing the men's strengths and weaknesses.
“When we were in Santa Malta, there was talk of individual candidates,” said Cardinal Nichols of England. “That's what we should do.”
German Cardinal Muller was a prominent conservative critic of Francis, who the late Pope fired from his position as a top doctoral official in the church, and said he was told that Latinos were “not splitting.”
The climate in the Prevost Cardinal appeared to be increasingly positive. The election was coming to him.
The next morning vote – Conclave's second and third votes made the photos clear.
“In the fourth vote, the vote shifted overwhelmingly,” said South Korean cardinal cardinal.
Cardinal Muller sat behind an American front runner in the Sistine Chapel and noticed that he looked calm. Sitting next to the Prevost Cardinal, the Tagle Cardinal noticed that he was taking a deep breath as he accumulated in support.
“I asked him, 'Do you want candy?' and he said 'Yes,'” Cardinal Tugle said.
One of the votes, the Tobin Cardinal, held the vote high, put it on bone n, and turned the Prevost Cardinal, which I had known for about 30 years.
“I saw Bob,” said Cardinal Tobin in New Jersey.
Late in the afternoon they voted again, then counting votes one by one. When the Prevost Cardinal reached 89 votes, a two-thirds majority threshold was needed to become Pope. “And he stayed seated!” said Cardinal David. “Someone had to lift him up. We were all tears up.”
The count continued and Cardinal Prevost voted closer to triple numbers, so Parolin Cardinal had to ask them to sit down to finish.
“He got a lot of votes,” said Desire Zarahazana Cardinal of Madagascar.
After his election, the Cardinals enthusiastically congratulated the new Pope. The short, unconformable Conclave ended, and Leo XIV passed through the curtains of the Crimson and stepped onto the balcony of St. Peter's Cathedral and the world stage.
Asked about the rules by an American a few days ago, his former favorite Tagle Cardinal said, “If there's anything you want to change about the rules of the Conclave, it's in your hands now.” ”
Aie balagtas see the contributions from Manila. Josephine de la Bleuyeres of Vatican City. Cho Sang-han from Seoul.
