James O'Reilly<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shortly after 6:00pm on May 8, 2025, the face of the new successor of St. Peter was revealed to the world, along with his name: Leo XIV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
HABEMUS PAPAM<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Minutes earlier, seagulls seemed to predict the white smoke from the Sistine Chapel. 133 voting cardinals, 24 hours and 23 minutes, and four ballots were what it took for a new pope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those 24 hours were full of anticipation\u2014Catholics waited for a new spiritual leader and rest of the world for a new papal face on the global stage. What happened within the Sistine Chapel remains a secret, but we do know of some things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first round of black smoke from the Sistine came about two hours later than expected. This was simply a mistake: one cardinal had inserted two ballots, and the vote had to be repeated. But there was another unusual incident that took place:<\/p>\n\n\n\n ELISABETTA PIQU\u00c9<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What we discovered was something completely unthinkable, something that didn\u2019t even occur in the film Conclave. In one of the most closed, tightly controlled election processes\u2014with every kind of control in place\u2014a phone had slipped in; that is, someone had to go to the Sistine Chapel and knock to warn them that security had detected a SIM card.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Robert Prevost was not among the most talked-about names in the early days, but little by little his name began popping up in the forecasts. Early on, the favorites were practically all Italian. Many guessed it might be the Vatican\u2019s number two, Pietro Parolin, but reality was far removed from those predictions, even from the start\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n ELISABETTA PIQU\u00c9<\/strong> There\u2019s a saying in the Vatican that seems to prove correct every conclave: \u201cHe who enters the Sistine Chapel as pope leaves as a cardinal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whatever the public opinion was, it did not match the opinion of the College of Cardinals. In the Sistine Chapel, no talking is allowed\u2014only voting. But beforehand, the entire College of Cardinals met for several days\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n ELISABETTA PIQU\u00c9<\/strong> Before the conclave started, the cardinals built a profile of who the next pope should be. And if there was one key point in common, it was unity of the Church in Christ. And among their numbers, there was one man they deemed fit for the job: Robert Prevost\u2014now Pope Leo XIV, the 267th pope of the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" James O'Reilly Shortly after 6:00pm on May 8, 2025, the face of the new successor of St. Peter was revealed to the world, along with his name: Leo XIV. HABEMUS PAPAM Minutes earlier, seagulls seemed to predict the white smoke from the Sistine Chapel. 133 voting cardinals, 24 hours and 23 minutes, and four ballots […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":758,"featured_media":89858,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/XL1_qEGqqFM","video_descarga":"https:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bcuriositaconclaveeng.mp4","international_url":"https:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bcuriositaconclaveint.mp4","type":"bn","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89857"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/758"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89857"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89867,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89857\/revisions\/89867"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
No, no, the first vote is key because no one imagined he had such a large bloc of votes\u2014that was crucial.<\/em>
They saw him as very calm, and he remained calm even as they began to read his name over and over: Prevost, Prevost, Prevost\u2014very calm, very composed.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so, all of this is to say that we arrived at the General Congregations, where we know there was a group of cardinals that flew under the radar\u2014which is another key point as well. They did not go around campaigning, as we saw in other cases, and that was crucial in preventing him (Robert Prevost\u2019s candidate) from being \u201cburned\u201d or disqualified.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n