At Mass on Sunday, the 267th pope called for peace in ongoing conflicts, and wished Happy Mother's Day. It represents both continuity and change for this two-thousand-year-old church, now – for the first time – led by an American pope.
Dressed in those storied papal vestments is a tennis-loving, Wordle-playing, White Sox fan from Chicago, a former math major at Villanova University who's now pontiff – Pope Leo XIV.
Ahead of the conclave that selected Robert Prevost, there was the scramble for clues from cardinals. When we asked Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco if there had been names mentioned, he replied, "No. No names. No names."
The anticipation in St. Peter's Square was palpable – watching and waiting for a sign.
John and Jill Bowling traveled from Illinois, even though they're not Catholic. "We came just for this," said John.
"Something I've wanted to do since I was a child watching on television," said Jill. "I just thought one day I want to be standing there."
By Thursday afternoon, tens of thousands were shoulder-to-shoulder, hoping to witness history, until white smoke appeared, and Cardinal Dominique Mamberti announced to the crowd, "Habemus papam" – "We have a pope." And soon we heard the name: Cardinal Prevost.
On Thursday the appearance of white smoke announced to the 150,000 present in St. Peter's Square, and the world, that a new pope had been elected.
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To an estimated crowd of 150,000, the new pope spoke in Italian, Latin and Spanish, vowing to build bridges.
Friday, he returned to the Sistine Chapel. There, the first native-English-speaking pope since Adrian IV of England in the 12th century said, "I know I can rely on each and every one of you to walk with me."
Pope Leo XIV delivers the Regina Caeli prayer in St. Peter's Square on May 11, 2025 in Vatican City.
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While Cardinal Prevost was seen as papabile (or "pope-worthy"), a pontiff from the United States was widely considered unlikely. So, we were surprised when we heard this from papal biographer Austen Ivereigh ahead of the conclave: "I think you should probably get ready to have the first American pope. I'm hearing Cardinal Prevost, who heads up bishops here."
He called it.
"Yeah, I was pretty convinced," Ivereigh told us after the conclave. He was one of the few.
"The list of requirements for a pope, it's not easy," Ivereigh said. "You've got to be evangelizer-in-chief. You need to be a statesman who can interact with world leaders. And you need to be a good governor of this place. And I thought, Prevost just brings those together in a beautiful way."
On Saturday, the new pope made some surprise appearances, after meeting with cardinals to detail his vision, identifying artificial intelligence as one of our biggest threats, and embracing his predecessor's ideals of a more inclusive church – one that reaches to those on the margins.
On Saturday Pope Leo XIV visited the tomb of Pope Francis, at the Church of Santa Maria Maggior in Rome.
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Prevost went to Peru as a missionary. He spent 20 years there, and became a citizen.
"He's American, but he feels very Peruvian," said Father Alexander Lam, who's Peruvian. He was thrilled that his fellow Augustinian priest became pontiff. "We jumped!" he laughed.
Asked what kind of pope Prevost will be, Lam replied, "He's very prudent, a person who can hear you passionately. He tries always to understand you very well."
But that title, Leo XIV, may take some getting used to. "His very close friends call him Bob," Lam said.
Those 133 cardinals took just two days to choose "Bob," while locked in the Sistine Chapel, a tradition born out of necessity back in 1268, in Viterbo, north of Rome. There, we met art historian Giordano Conticelli.
"This is where the first conclave took place," he said. "Here, something really important happened. A group of cardinals gathered together to elect the new pope, and the problem was that it took a long time. It took about three years almost." 1,006 days, to be exact.
I asked, "The citizens were getting tired of waiting for a pope?"
"They were absolutely exhausted," Conticelli said. "So, they decided to lock the cardinals inside, clausi cum clave, which literally means locked with a key, which is where the word conclaves comes from."
Correspondent Seth Doanec with art historian Giordano Conticelli at the papal palace in Viterbo, Italy, where competing factions of cardinals were deadlocked for three years in the 13th century over the selection of a pope.
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But then, things got more extreme. "The next measure was to ration their food," Conticelli said, "and then eventually given that wasn't working, they decided to remove the roof of the hall."
Removing the roof to let in the elements was not necessary this time around. John and Jill Bowling had a much shorter wait. "It was just one of those moments that you can't replace," said John. "I was surprised how emotional I was. I think it says something about the unity of humanity – that was moving to me."
Gathered in this timeless square, we met people of differing countries and convictions, many drawn not just by grand spectacle, but by belief – or hope – in a new moral leader who's guided not by national interests, but something greater.
I asked Austen Ivereigh, "When we look back at this conclave, how will it be remembered?"
"I think it might be remembered as the conclave that had to deal with the breakdown of the world order," he replied. "They elected a man who had a very strong message from the balcony of bringing peace to the Earth. What is the role of the Catholic Church in a time of war? Well, it's to obviously show the world that there is another way. And I think, in Leo, we're going to see an American exercising a very different kind of leadership, and it's the task of the pope to help us to recover that universal unity."
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Story produced by Mikaela Bufano. Editor: Ed Givnish.
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