SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Ten American cardinals went into the Sistine Chapel for a conclave this past week. Nine came out.
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TIMOTHY DOLAN: Where he comes from is sort of now a thing of the past. You know, Robert Francis Prevost is no longer around. It's now Pope Leo.
DETROW: That's the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, reflecting on the fact that he and 132 other cardinals selected Chicago-born Robert Prevost as the head of the Roman Catholic Church. On Wednesday morning, the cardinals sealed themselves off from the rest of the world. Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the Archbishop of Newark, recalled the moment as he, Dolan and four other U.S. cardinals spoke to reporters in Rome.
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JOSEPH TOBIN: Any device that could transmit was taken from us.
DETROW: The shutters of the guest house they all stayed in, the Casa Santa Marta, were closed shut. Cell signals around the building were jammed. The food, Dolan said, wasn't great. And yet, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the former head of the Washington, D.C., Archdiocese, said...
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WILTON GREGORY: This is one of the most prayerful moments in my life.
DETROW: After the cardinals selected Pope Leo, they each approached him, one by one, at the altar in front of Michelangelo's fresco of The Last Judgment.
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GREGORY: I felt comfortable saying to Pope Leo, from one South Sider of Chicago to another...
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GREGORY: ...I promise you my respect, my fidelity and my love.
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TOBIN: And after one of the ballots, you know, you carry your ballot, and you deposit it, and you say a few words in Latin.
DETROW: Tobin has known and worked with Prevost for three decades.
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TOBIN: Then I walked back and I took a look at Bob, and he had his head in his hands. And I was praying for him because I couldn't imagine what happens to a human being when you're facing something like that.
DETROW: But when Bob, as Tobin was calling him, became Pope Leo, Tobin said everything seemed to change.
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TOBIN: All of whatever anguish was resolved by the feeling that, I think, that this wasn't simply his saying yes to a proposal, but God had made something clear, and he agreed with it.
DETROW: Speaking in Italian to the cardinals this weekend, Pope Leo told them he chose his name to honor Pope Leo XIII, who spoke up for workers' rights and social justice during the industrial revolution. Pope Leo XIV said the world is at a similar turning point. To get a sense of what this means for the Catholic Church in America and the world, I talked to Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
Cardinal Dolan, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
DOLAN: Nice to be here. Thanks for asking.
DETROW: What went through your mind when you realized the conclave was about to elect the first American pope?
DOLAN: We really hadn't thought of him as a cardinal from the United States. Now, by that, that doesn't mean we weren't (ph) extraordinarily proud and kind of excited about it. I'm an historian of the Catholic Church in the United States. We are always considered bambini. We're considered babies 'cause for us, when you've been around 2,000 years, they look to us like rookies, OK? What struck me - we've grown up. We've come of age. We got the car keys. We can drive. I hope that gives a sense of not just pride, 'cause that's transient, but a sense of gratitude from where we've come and to where we're going. I think it could be a real booster shot for the Catholic family in the United States.
DETROW: Do you think that changes the Vatican at all? Do you think that changes the church in the United States, given the fact that the pope is a Chicago native?
DOLAN: Well, I hope so. I hope so. We need change. We always need change. You know the old Latin phrase, ecclesia semper reformanda, the church is always in need of renewal. So if it does, all the better. I think, though, the arrival of a new pope, from wherever he came, usually brings a bit of a hint of regeneration that we need. Is this going to be a bit more discernible in the United States because we have a pope who was born in Chicago and who happens to be a White Sox, not a Cubs, fan? - 'cause I asked him. That was kind of essential.
DETROW: This has been a key question. You got a clear answer?
DOLAN: Because I said, I'm from St. Louis, and we can't stand the Cubs - and he said - he - before I told him that bias, he had told me he's a White Sox fan.
DETROW: OK.
DOLAN: (Laughter).
DETROW: When you left the conclave and caught up with the rest of the world, you must have noticed that many people were reading this as a referendum on American politics, on American leadership in the world. I know you and the other cardinals pushed back on that in the press conference today. Let me ask this, did global politics, did geopolitics, enter into your mind at all when you were thinking about who you wanted to select to lead the Catholic Church at this moment?
DOLAN: It - sure, it would have but not as far as personalities or nations. It would have been more in the sense that the successor of Peter has to be a bridge-builder, a pontiff, and has to be able, in a very conversational, friendly yet cogent way, present to the leaders of the world the enduring gospel values that have to illuminate the choices that they're making. So that would - yeah, you bet that was part of it. Did I read it as a - as maybe empowering this pope to be particularly cogent in his dealings with superpowers because he's from the United States? No.
DETROW: What will you - without excommunicating yourself - what will you remember from this conclave, from this experience in the Sistine Chapel, being part of the election of the next pope?
DOLAN: Well, it wasn't my first rodeo, remember, 'cause I was there in 2013. So surprises, no. The only surprise was that the surprises of the first time were repeated and renewed in a very fresh way.
DETROW: How so?
DOLAN: So I thought I would say, I'm used to this, OK? When the balloting - when he won, the exhilaration. When they said, you've just been elected Roman pontiff, do you accept? And he said, I accept - exhilaration. When he went in and changed into the white cassock of the pope and sat in the empty chair that was no longer empty - exhilaration. When we heard the ecstasy of the crowd, when they said habemus papam - exhilaration like kids on Christmas morning. And here are seasoned cardinals that have been through nine innings, and even extra innings, who were moved to tears because of the excitement of the moment.
DETROW: Lastly, is it a tough break for New York that the pope's from Chicago?
DOLAN: (Laughter) Listen, no comment.
DETROW: Got to ask.
DOLAN: (Laughter).
DETROW: Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, thank you so much.
DOLAN: Way to go. Thank you.
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