As we approach the six-month point (8 November) since Pope Leo XIV was elected, Christopher White reflects on the importance of the conclave that elected him and on the surprising speed with which Cardinal Robert Provost was chosen to lead the Catholic Church.
Even before Pope Francis' death on 21 April 2025, several cardinals had told me they believed that the conclave to elect his successor might be the most important in at least sixty years.
When Pope John XXIII died on June 3, 1963, from stomach cancer at age 81, it was a time of testing for the global Catholic Church.
Just one year earlier, the Pope had presided over the opening of the Second Vatican Council, a landmark event in the history of Catholicism that promised to open up the Church to the modern world. Many heralded the moment as long-overdue; while others feared the Church's longstanding traditions could be undone.
Following Pope John's death, the cardinals had to decide if they would elect a new pope who would push ahead with the reforms that the Council had set in motion. On June 21, 1963, when Giovanni Battista Montini emerged from the conclave, taking the name Pope Paul VI, it sent a signal that the reforms set in motion by John XXIII would continue.
The former cardinal of Milan had been an ally of John XXIII and, though different in disposition – John XXIII had a winsome, extroverted, sometimes even comical personality compared to the more sober and contemplative Paul VI – Montini had been deeply engaged in the first session of the Council.
But while the conclave of 1963 made it clear that the Council and its reforms would continue, it also signalled that they would be navigated by a leader with a very different approach to governance.
Fast forward to 2025. Much of the Francis papacy could be seen as trying to implement the reforms of the Council, particularly its promise of inviting greater participation of the Catholic laity in the life of the Church and more collegial style of Church governance.
But some of Francis' own cardinals had warned that he had gone too far: Cardinal George Pill, before his death in 2023, had penned a secret memo labelling the Francis papacy a "catastrophe”.
German Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former head of the Vatican's doctrinal office, went even further in his public criticisms, implying that Francis might have drifted into heresy for allowing priests to offer blessings to couples in same-sex unions.
Would the conclave after Pope Francis’s death be a moment when the cardinals sought a course correction? Or would they elect someone to continue in the same direction of travel as Francis?
In the days after Francis' death, the 133 cardinals under the age of 80 – and thus eligible to participate in the conclave – made their way to Rome from every corner of the globe. This would be the largest and most diverse conclave in history, with over 70 countries represented.
Francis had radically altered the make-up of the elite body tasked with serving as the Pope's closest collaborators and who are responsible for electing the next pontiff. During his 12-year papacy, the Pope gave the cardinal's red hat to men in places like Brunei and Papua New Guinea, but bypassed traditional places like Paris and Milan.
The new composition of the college better reflected the geographic diversity of the Church's 1.4 billion members, but it also meant that these men – now tasked with casting the most important ballots of their life – hardly knew one another.
Prior to the conclave, the cardinals met daily in secret meetings, known as general congregations, to discuss the state of the world and the Church. Who among them might best be suited to lead in these troubled times?
Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Francis' longtime secretary of state, entered the conclave as the immediate favourite given his name-recognition and history as a veteran Vatican diplomat. But although he was viewed by many as a steady pair of hands, there was concern about his lack of pastoral experience and fears that his lack of charisma would leave him unable to connect with crowds.
Filipino Cardinal Luis Tagle also went into the conclave with momentum. Known as the "Asian Francis" due to his focus on the poor and marginalised, many viewed him as the obvious continuity candidate that would also be a nod to the Church's future. But questions were also raised about his management style.
Neither would be able to achieve a two-thirds majority and the hunt was on for someone who could blend the best of both worlds.
Many of the cardinals believed that what was needed was an outsider who would not be beholden to the Vatican's powerful bureaucracy and whose personal background reflected the rich mosaic of the Church's diversity.
Yet there was also a desire for someone who understood how the system worked and would be capable of governing an often unwieldy institution.
Cardinal Robert Prevost, then aged 69, was one of the few men who checked all of those boxes, but he had a major strike against him: a US passport. The conventional wisdom has long been that an American could never be elected pope. There has historically been little appetite to consider someone from the world's leading superpower.
Despite being a native of Chicago, though, Prevost had spent roughly one-third of his life in the United States, one-third in Italy – during which he obtained his doctorate in canon law and then served as the head of the Augustinians, the religious order that he began to discern with as a teenager – and then one-third of his life in Peru as a missionary priest and later, as a bishop.
Pope Francis had brought Prevost to Rome in 2023 to run the powerful Vatican office that helps vet potential bishops and he quickly became one of the Pope's most trusted advisers. The two men were different in disposition: Francis an extrovert, Prevost an introvert. But they shared similar pastoral instincts with a deep commitment to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
A talented linguist, Prevost was able to converse at ease with almost all of the cardinals that had gathered in Rome to elect the next pope. His reserved style meant that he avoided the spotlight, but for many of the cardinals, that only made him more attractive.
When white smoke appeared from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel after just four ballots signalling that a new pope had been elected, it caught many by surprise. Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago later said, "We had 133 electors who came from more than 70 countries, continents, languages and cultures and age groups. In less than 24 hours elected a pope."
He added: "I would hope that mad dash to unity would be something the world could see as a model of how we bridge our differences."
When Prevost appeared on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica for his first public address, he said he dreamed of a Church that is missionary in nature, capable of dialoging with the world around it as a bridge builder.
In what some expected to be a divisive conclave, the cardinals had come to see him as someone who embodies that identity – and they thereby charged him with the great responsibility of serving as that bridge builder for the entire world.
Christopher White is the author of Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy. He is associate director and senior fellow at Georgetown University's Initiative for Catholic Social Thought and Public Life.
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