After having triggered the black smoke shortly before noon, the 133 cardinals finally managed to agree this Thursday shortly after 6:00 p.m. HAS 6:08 p.m. specifies, white smoke appeared. The 267th pope is elected.
Born in Chicago, member of the Order of Saint-Augustin, Mgr Prevost has since 2023 have the prefect of the powerful Dicastery of the Bishops, responsible for appointing the bishops of the whole world. Pope Francis had created surprise by calling him to occupy this function, the cardinal having spent his life far from the Vatican.
Bishop Prevost spent years as a missionary in Peru and is the Archbishop-Bishop Emeritus of Chiclayo in this country in South America. He is also president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.
“He is the least American of the Americans, and if someone could break the unwritten law that prevents a cardinal from the American superpower from becoming bishop of Rome, that’s right”, Comments the Republic.
He is the first pope from the United States in history.
It was the cardinal “Protodiacre”, the French Dominique Mamberti, who pronounced the famous formula “Habemus Papam” (“We have a pope”) and presented the successor of François, who died on April 21 at 88.
In the process, Léon XIV addressed more than 1.4 billion Catholics: “May peace be with you all!”, were his first words, in an Italian tinged with American accent. “”Thanks to Pope Francis “he also launched, thanking his cardinal colleagues for having elected her.
Faithful and tourists massed on Place Saint-Pierre praised with a thunderous applause its appearance on the balcony of the Saint-Pierre basilica, about a half hour after the white smoke was finally leaving the thin fireplace installed on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, found AFP journalists.
Moderate listening man
This man of listening and synthesis, classified among the moderates, and knowing as much the terrain as the cogs of the Vatican, was considered as one of the favorites to succeed Pope Francis, who had placed him at the head of the powerful ministry responsible for the appointments of bishops.
The cardinals therefore opted for continuity, even if this American, created Cardinal in 2023 by François who brought his ascent to the Vatican, should put more the forms than his predecessor, who had jostled the Holy See with his exercise of personal, even brittle, crisscrosing the feathers of the vatican hierarchy.
The new pope was elected on the second day of this ballot which promised to be very open, notably due to the record number of cardinals present.
-The new sovereign pontiff brought together a majority of two thirds, that is to say at least 89 votes, on his name. But due to the absolute secrecy surrounding the conclave, the details of the ballot are not known.
The 267th Pope of the Catholic Church, the firstcomer from the United States, is the fourth non-Italian immediately after the Polish Jean-Paul II (1978-2005), the German Benoît XVI (2005-2013) and the Argentin François (2013-2025).
Under the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, prelates from 70 countries have met, many of which come from the “peripheries” dear to Pope Francis who had named more than 80% of them. The meeting had early Wednesday afternoon, after an extremely codified ceremonial.
During the “general congregations” in Rome in recent days, cardinals around the world had sketched the profile of a field pastor, unifying and capable of making “consensus” within a globalized Church with multiple sensitivities.
Considerable challenges
The native of Chiacago will have to quickly face considerable challenges for a loss of speed in Europe: finances, fight against pedocrime, drop in vocations …
But he will also have to reappear the various currents of an institution in which very diverse cultural sensitivities coexist, between a secularized Europe and growing “peripheries”.
He will also have to appease an institution sometimes shaken by a pontificate punctuated by reforms and sliced words, which have sometimes been the subject of strong internal criticism.
His perfect knowledge of the whole of the Roman Curia (administrative apparatus of the Holy See), of which he knows all the cogs, should help him greatly in his task.
During a final public mass on Wednesday morning, the dean of the Cardinalice college, the Italian Giovanni Battista Re, called to choose the pope “which the church and humanity need this difficult, complex and tormented turning point”, and pleaded “to maintain the unity of the church”.
This decisive conclave for the Church also aroused considerable media craze since several thousand journalists covered the election, transforming the surroundings of Saint-Pierre square in the open airplane.
