World Religions News

(RNS) — “Of course, you know that Hitler negotiated with Herzl.”

I heard those words in a university classroom as a sophomore in college in 1974, in the wake of the Yom Kippur War.

I raised my hand, and I said: “How is that even possible? When Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, died in 1904, Hitler was 15 years old. What did they possibly have to negotiate about?”

That happened more than 50 years ago, but I will never forget it. It was a clear attempt to link Zionism with Nazism.

The ignorance and malice we see on college campuses is not new.

Which brings me to how I spent this past Sunday afternoon (May 18) — at a conference titled “The End of an Era? Jews and Elite Universities” at the Center for Jewish History in New York City.

We pondered serious questions that plague the American Jewish community: Why has antisemitism grown on college campuses? Is it only the result of Oct. 7, 2023? Why has the intellectual culture gotten so chilly for Jews? And, what can we do?

The list of presenters was impressive: among them, Rabbi David Wolpe; Ambassador and professor Deborah E. Lipstadt, the former U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism; author Steven Pinker; hedge fund manager Bill Ackman (whose presence at the conference was controversial); scholar Pamela Nadell; and Leon Wieseltier, editor of Liberties journal. The chairman of the symposium was Martin Peretz, former publisher of The New Republic. The crowd was diverse in its political leanings and, refreshingly, mostly polite to those with whom they disagreed.

Some interesting takeaways:

• We heard stories of students avoiding Hillel for fear of being identified as Jewish; of an older student refusing to mentor a younger student who was taking modern Hebrew, and other tales of academic woe. (Read the report on antisemitism at Harvard University — it is huge and powerful).
• We heard history. In the first decades of the 20th century, Columbia University, Harvard and other universities instituted quotas and other ways of limiting the number of Jewish students. Harvard saw itself as a training ground for American leadership, and Jews did not fit with the idea of the well-rounded “Harvard man,” we learned.
• The more you pay, the more uncomfortable it gets. Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, executive director of Harvard Hillel, showed us a graph indicating that the more expensive the college, the more likely there will be anti-Israel activism.
• Why this is happening is bigger than the Jews. There is a perceived binary: the powerful and the powerless, and Jews are imagined as powerful on campuses.
• But, take a breath. It should be possible to protest Israel’s actions and policies without earning the badge of antisemitism. And, there is such a thing as free speech, even and especially for those with reprehensible views — but of course when those views become actions against students and others, that’s a different story. So, too, even people with violent ideologies have the right to due process. Because, there are greater dangers here … .
• The way the current administration is weaponizing Jewish fears of antisemitism. Most presenters (Ackman was a notable exception) saw the Trump administration’s efforts as being overkill and misguided, and assaults on the intellectual class itself. Let’s not become like the Jews who thought the czars would protect them and were wrong — what professor Susie Linfield of New York University called “a Faustian bargain.”

All of this got me thinking back to my Herzl/Hitler story.

How did I know this little historical tidbit that Hitler was born in 1889, and Herzl died in 1904?

Because my Jewish education lasted into my high school years, and somewhere in that experience, I learned it.

Could today’s young Jews answer that accusation?

Most likely not.

According to Nancy Berman’s research (I quote her in my recent book):

“Presently, the majority of families consider b’nai mitzvah to be … a finish line and a time when children and families leave synagogue life altogether. The demands of the secular world, including academics and social concerns, take precedence over the development of Jewish identity. Out of 24 communities surveyed between 1993 and 2010, over half reported less than 50% of their children continued beyond bar or bat mitzvah education.”

And as Wieseltier said:

“Jewish parents forgot to pack a knowledge of Jewish history and Jewish philosophy in the duffel bags when they sent the kids off to college. We have been sending off to college generations of Jewish kids who are not ready for what has become one of the most important battles of ideas of our time. Israel is a just cause. The survival of Israel is a just cause. Zionism is not that hard to argue for, but almost no one in the American Jewish community remembers how to make the argument. Young Jews must understand the rightness of their cause. They must understand their own history. They must know how to argue unafraid.”

Do Jewish kids need to memorize the history of Israel? No. But, at the very least they can learn how to define Zionism, which is, according to Amanda Berman of Zioness, the liberation of the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland. And they can learn how to defend that idea.

Was there any good news from the conference? Yes, it came from Rubenstein, the Harvard Hillel director.

He said, yes, these situations on campuses are bad. But, Jewish students are stepping up. They are exhibiting a kind of moral heroism that is actually admirable. 

So, how do we fight what is happening on college campuses? Yes, through legal channels, if necessary. Through moral persuasion, if possible.

But, most of all, we need to work on ourselves. We need students with Jewish brains and Jewish muscles.

Let’s create those kids.

Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois. / Credit: Diocese of Springfield in Illinois

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 19, 2025 / 17:57 pm (CNA).

Bishop Thomas Paprocki, Bishop Kevin Rhoades, and Father Thomas Ferguson will join an advisory board for President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, according to a statement from the White House.

The three Catholic clergymen will join San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone on the Advisory Board of Religious Leaders for the commission. Two members of the Church hierarchy — Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York and Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota — are serving on the commission itself.

Rhoades, the bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, chairs the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Religious Liberty. Paprocki, the bishop of Springfield, Illinois, played a major role in the bishops’ “Fortnight for Freedom” religious liberty campaign during the 2010s, according to the White House. 

Neither Paprocki nor Rhoades could be reached for comment by the time of publication.

Ferguson, who is a parish priest at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Alexandria, Virginia, also has a doctorate in government and authored “Catholic and American: The Political Theology of John Courtney Murray,” which focused on religious liberty and Catholicism in the United States.

“We’re looking forward … to the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence next year,” Ferguson told CNA in an interview, saying he hopes the commission can assist in “pointing out … just how important religious communities like the Catholic Church are to our society.”

Ferguson said the inclusion of Catholic clergy on the commission “is extremely welcomed by our Church,” adding: “It really puts us all in a forum where we can do the important work of educating people.”

One element on which Ferguson hopes to focus is insurance mandates for services that “violate our conscience” on issues such as contraception, sterilization, and transgender drugs and surgeries: “All of these things that we would find morally objectionable, we must be vigilant [against].”

He said he is also concerned about “where this country is going in terms of in vitro fertilization [IVF]” and noted that there are some politicians who “refer to themselves of pro-life legislators [despite] being advocates for IVF.”

“You also need to be protective of human life … created through IVF,” Ferguson said, recalling the millions of human embryos destroyed through the IVF process.

Ferguson discussed a new law in Washington state that will lead to the arrest of priests if they do not report child abuse they learn about during the sacrament of reconciliation, which would violate the “absolute sense of secrecy [of a] … sacramental confession.”

“That’s an area,” he said, where “we can be very consistent in teaching, explaining and clarifying for people: ‘This is how we freely exercise our religion in terms of the First Amendment.’” 

The Religious Liberty Commission

In addition to the advisory board consisting of religious clergy, the White House also created an advisory board made up of legal experts and another of lay leaders. These boards will assist the commission in developing its final report.

The commission and its advisory boards include members of various religions, including Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Islam, and Judaism.

The report will outline the current threats to religious freedom in the United States and provide strategies on how to ensure legal protections when rights are under attack. It will also lay out the foundation of religious liberty in the United States and issue guidance on how to increase awareness of the historically peaceful religious pluralism within the country. 

Some of the commission’s key focus areas include conscience protections, free speech for religious bodies, institutional autonomy, attacks on houses of worship, parental rights in education, and school choice.

Trump established the commission on May 1 through an executive order, which coincided with the National Day of Prayer.

In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russian President Vladimir Putin (center) speaks to journalists at the Sirius Educational Center in Sochi on May 19, 2025, after a telephone conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump. / Credit: VYACHESLAV PROKOFYEV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

CNA Staff, May 19, 2025 / 17:25 pm (CNA).

President Donald Trump said Monday that following a two-hour phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia and Ukraine will “immediately” begin ceasefire negotiations, with the Vatican possibly hosting the talks. 

“Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will begin immediately. I have so informed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine; Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission; President Emmanuel Macron of France; Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy; Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany; and President Alexander Stubb of Finland, during a call with me, immediately after the call with President Putin,” Trump wrote. 

“The Vatican, as represented by the pope, has stated that it would be very interested in hosting the negotiations. Let the process begin!” he concluded. 

Writing on social media, Trump said the “tone and spirit of the conversation” with Putin were “excellent.”

The Vatican did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Trump’s remarks. Last Friday, however, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, told reporters that “the pope plans to make the Vatican, the Holy See, available for a direct meeting between the two sides.”

Zelenskyy said at a press conference Monday that he wants the meeting to happen as soon as possible and that it could be hosted by Turkey, the Vatican, or Switzerland, the BBC reported. Meloni on Monday expressed support for the Vatican’s possible hosting of the meeting. 

In the 10 days since his election on May 8, Leo has appeared to take a more pro-Ukraine stance in the Russia-Ukraine conflict than his immediate predecessor Pope Francis, first by speaking to Zelenskyy by phone in the first hours of his papacy, then meeting the leader for a private audience the same day of his inaugural Mass.

Leo also called for negotiations for a “just and lasting peace” in Ukraine in his first two Regina Caeli messages on May 11 and May 18, and one of his early audiences was with the head of the Greek Ukrainian Catholic Church, Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk.

As a bishop in Peru in 2022, then-Bishop Robert Prevost also made explicit reference to Russia’s invasion, calling it “imperialist in nature,” while Francis avoided such language in his peace appeals and had even called for Ukraine to raise the white flag. Francis appointed Cardinal Matteo Zuppi as his peace envoy to Ukraine.

(RNS) — For decades, Glen Nelson heard from Latter-day Saint artists, writers, musicians, dancers and filmmakers about how much their faith had shaped their creative work. Some of these were people he hosted in his family’s tiny New York apartment.

Over and over, he heard the same refrain: that they had no idea how many other creative professionals existed in the Mormon world.

Nelson, who arrived in New York for graduate school 40 years ago and never left, was strategically positioned to help them connect with one another. He was a writer who sang in a semi-professional chorus and had worked as a professional dancer, so he had relationships in multiple artistic fields.

Nelson and others set out to bring artists together — and to introduce them to audiences eager for their work. This was the birth of the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, which had its first major gathering in 2016 in New York. Since then, it has mounted museum exhibits, concerts, multiple books (including this gorgeous book from Oxford University Press), an artistic residency program and more.

And at the end of this month, it will host a two-day virtual festival with star power. Anyone is welcome to register ($99 general registration, $59 for students) and be part of this highly interactive event.

“This platform we’re using is super impressive,” said Nelson. “It’s not just sitting and watching a Zoom conference. There’ll be chats and a gaming system — the more you engage with stuff, the more points you get. You can win prizes, and you can have a one-on-one chat with somebody. You can schedule meetings and even share a portfolio. So it is much more involved. There are breaks between sessions, like to get up and move with a New York Rockette or pick up a pencil and draw with artist Walter Rane.”

Anyone who purchases a ticket will be able to access the festival’s content for three months, so even people who are not able to participate live can attend.

One highlight is an opening plenary with composer Cinco Paul, who is best known for being one-half of the creative team behind three “Despicable Me” movies, “The Secret Life of Pets,” “Horton Hears a Who” and “The Lorax.” He then migrated over to television with the quixotic musical series “Schmigadoon!,” which starred Kristin Chenoweth, Alan Cumming, Cecily Strong and others. The show won him an Emmy and a legion of devoted fans.

To read: “Despicable Me” creator on Mormonism, Minions, and “the best calling in the church”

“Schmigadoon!” was picked up for “two glorious seasons” on Apple TV+, which Paul told RNS was a major highlight of his career so far. He got to be a showrunner, which meant “there’s nothing in the show that I didn’t approve or want to be there.”

Paul said a possible third season’s 25 songs are ready to go should a network ever decide to bring it back to TV. That probably won’t happen, but he described himself as a “consummate optimist,” a trait he associates with being LDS.

He has many other projects in development. “You have to have a dozen ideas at any one time” to succeed in the entertainment business, he noted. So he has been fulfilling some of his stage dreams, dividing his time between Los Angeles and New York. A stage musical version of “Schmigadoon!” was mounted at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in 2021 to rave reviews.

He has also completed a new musical, “A.D. 16,” which he hopes will be Broadway-bound. It’s based on the idea of Jesus and Mary Magdalene as adolescent neighbors. “What would it be like if your teenage crush was Jesus?” he mused.

McKay Coppins, a prominent journalist for The Atlantic, pre-recorded an interview with Paul in a rehearsal studio with a live audience. Paul also asked some Broadway friends to join him in performing several of his songs. Special guests include Ann Harada (Madam Frau in “Schmigadoon!,” both TV and stage versions, and Christmas Eve in “Avenue Q”), McKenzie Kurtz (a “Frozen” Broadway star who played Betsy in the Kennedy Center stage production of “Schmigadoon!”), and Phoenix Best (Broadway actor for “The Color Purple” and “Dear Evan Hansen”).

That’s just one part of the festival’s jam-packed agenda. Another presenter is Hawaiian-born LDS playwright Melissa Leilani Larson, who is based in Salt Lake City. She’s had more than two dozen of her plays produced — some professionally at regional theaters, some at universities and theater festivals. One of her most popular is an adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” which in an RNS interview she called a “really solid” play that “will have a long life of being staged at a variety of places.”

For the festival she’s unveiling a work in progress, an adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel “North and South,” which will be performed by actors in a “table read.” Larson said she is “excited because I feel like it’s very theatrical and moving.” The challenge is condensing Gaskell’s rather massive 19th-century novel into a two-hour play. “That is the part I’m struggling with right now, but it is fun,” she said.

Larson, a Brigham Young University alumna, said her LDS identity is bound up with her craft and that the theater is a sacred space for her.

“Some of my most personal, strongest interactions with the Spirit have been in an artistic setting. I feel like there is a power. There’s a reason that Jesus taught with parables. And the best theater, just like the best prose and the best poetry, is teaching a lesson without teaching a lesson, if that makes sense.”  

Larson and Paul will be joined by a veritable “who’s who” of presenters at the festival, with sessions that include:

• A 20th-anniversary screening of the documentary film “New York Doll,” with filmmaker Greg Whiteley offering behind-the-scenes commentary. The 2005 documentary followed punk band bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane, a convert to Mormonism, as he coped with addiction recovery and his adopted faith.
• Four video game music composers talking about their creative process and how they scored blockbuster games like “Call of Duty,” “Assassin’s Creed” and “Resident Evil.”
• Internationally known LDS artist Brian Kershisnik conducting “studio tours” with up-and-coming LDS artists in Nigeria, Angola, Switzerland, Japan, Argentina and Mexico.
• An audience-prompted improv comedy session with half a dozen professional comedians taking cues from the crowd about where their sketches should go next.
• Author Todd Robert Petersen and illustrator Zoë Petersen presenting two stories about the influence of LDS faith in a post apocalyptic world.
• Visual artist Justin Wheatley painting the festival as it happens in real time and answering questions from the audience.
• A keynote address by historian, arts lover and center co-founder Richard Bushman.

In all, it’s a full-to-overflowing program that celebrates the presence and often-unsung contributions of Latter-day Saints in the arts, and Nelson can hardly wait.

“It’s all about having people just be really proud of where we are right now, in creating history and just learning from each other. And just having some fun,” he said.

Related content:

“Despicable Me” creator on Mormonism, Minions, and “the best calling in the church”

Mormon ‘gospel art’: Kitsch or classic?

(RNS) — The purpose of Vatican diplomacy is not to seek privileges, but to strengthen its evangelical mission at the service of humanity, Pope Leo XIV told diplomats in his first major foreign policy address on May 16.

Peace, justice and truth will be the pillars of the Catholic Church’s missionary activity and the aim of the Holy See’s diplomacy in his papacy, he said.

Cardinal Robert Prevost was not an experienced diplomat like Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state who was considered the frontrunner in the lead-up to the papal conclave that elected Prevost. But neither was Pope Francis a trained diplomat, yet he did very well on the world stage.

On the other hand, Leo is not ignorant of the world. He is the most well-traveled person ever elected pope, having visited 47 countries while he was prior general of the Augustinian religious order. Francis hardly traveled outside of Argentina before becoming pope.

Now, as head of one of the most ancient and influential entities in the world of diplomacy, Leo will have to get up to speed quickly on the international issues facing the world. Everyone is watching to see if he is up to the job.

Aiding him on international issues is a highly professional diplomatic establishment in the Vatican secretariat of state with nunciatures (embassies) in almost every country.

In the foreign policy address, Leo did not depart from previous Vatican policy but gave it his own personal spin. He said he and the church aspire “to reach out and embrace all individuals and peoples on the Earth, who need and yearn for truth, justice and peace.”

His own life experience, he said, “has been marked by this aspiration to transcend borders in order to encounter different peoples and cultures.” Although born in the United States, he spent 20 years of ministry in Peru.

He promised to follow his “predecessor, ever attentive to the cry of the poor, the needy and the marginalized.” He also noted his focus on contemporary challenges, ranging from the protection of creation to artificial intelligence. He pledged to strengthen understanding and dialogue with the countries of the diplomats.

And the core of his message focused on the three words he considers the aim of Vatican diplomacy: peace, justice and truth.

Peace, he insisted, is not simply the absence of war but a gift of Christ. It demands “first of all that we work on ourselves. Peace is built in the heart and from the heart, by eliminating pride and vindictiveness and carefully choosing our words.”

He said he believes “religions and interreligious dialogue can make a fundamental contribution to fostering a climate of peace,” as did Pope Francis. But he argued, “this naturally requires full respect for religious freedom in every country, since religious experience is an essential dimension of the human person. Without it, it is difficult, if not impossible, to bring about the purification of the heart necessary for building peaceful relationships.”

He then made a strong pitch to reinvigorate multilateral diplomacy and engage international institutions, as opposed to the go-it-alone approach popular today. He also reiterated Francis’ message that no peace is “possible without true disarmament.” Francis did not want a nation’s requirement that it provide for its own defense to turn into a race to rearmament.

The second word Leo focused on is justice, without which peace is impossible. He said he believes that like his predecessor, Leo XIII, we live in a time of epochal change.

“The Holy See cannot fail to make its voice heard in the face of the many imbalances and injustices that lead to unworthy working conditions and increasingly fragmented and conflict-ridden societies,” he said. This requires that “every effort should be made to overcome the global inequalities — between opulence and destitution — that are carving deep divides between continents, countries and even within individual societies.”

He said government leaders need “to work to build harmonious and peaceful civil societies” by investing in families of heterosexual couples and respecting the dignity of every person, “especially the most frail and vulnerable, from the unborn to the elderly, from the sick to the unemployed, citizens and immigrants alike.”

The first pope from the United States noted he was “a citizen, the descendant of immigrants, who in turn chose to emigrate.”

Finally, he turned to truth, which is necessary for peaceful relations.

“Where words take on ambiguous and ambivalent connotations, and the virtual world, with its altered perception of reality, takes over unchecked,” he warned, “it is difficult to build authentic relationships since the objective and real premises of communication are lacking.”

He indicated he will not pull his punches when speaking truth about humanity and the world, even “resorting whenever necessary to blunt language that may initially create misunderstanding.” In previous papacies, the media has tended to give more attention to the papacy’s blunt words on abortion and gender than on justice and peace. 

But “truth,” he said, “can never be separated from charity, which always has at its root a concern for the life and well-being of every man and woman.” Thus while he will emphasize that the family is founded upon the stable union between a man and a woman, he will demand that everyone be treated with love and respect.

“Truth,” he believes, “does not create division, but rather enables us to confront all the more resolutely the challenges of our time, such as migration, the ethical use of artificial intelligence and the protection of our beloved planet Earth.”

He concluded with a note to hope. He believes we “can build a world in which everyone can lead an authentically human life in truth, justice and peace.

“It is my hope that this will be the case everywhere, starting with those places that suffer most grievously, like Ukraine and the Holy Land,” he said. 

In his first appearance on the international diplomacy stage, Pope Leo showed he was up to the task.

Former president Joe Biden’s office revealed his prostate cancer diagnosis on Sunday, May 18, 2025. / Credit: Maxim Elramsisy/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 19, 2025 / 16:42 pm (CNA).

The Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware, and politicians from both major political parties are urging the country to pray for former president Joe Biden after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Biden’s office announced on Sunday that the former president was diagnosed last week with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, stating that doctors found a prostate nodule after Biden experienced “increasing urinary symptoms.”

“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive, which allows for effective management,” the statement added. “The president and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”

The news was met with overwhelming support and calls for prayers, including from the Diocese of Wilmington, the diocese to which the country’s second Catholic president belongs.

“As Catholics, we are called to carry out Christ’s charge to ‘heal the sick’ by caring for those who are ill and accompanying them in their time of suffering through prayers of intercession,” Robert G. Krebs, the communications director for the diocese, said in a statement.

“The Church believes in the life-giving presence of Christ, the physician of souls and bodies, and wishes the former president a rapid return to health,” he said.

On Monday, Biden posted a message on X that included a picture of himself with his wife, former first lady Jill Biden, thanking the public for their support.

“Cancer touches us all,” Biden said on X. “Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support.”

Politicians offer prayers, best wishes

President Donald Trump, who ran against Biden twice, expressed sadness about the news in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

“Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden’s recent medical diagnosis,” Trump wrote. “We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.”

Vice President JD Vance, the second Catholic vice president after Biden, told reporters that “we wish the best for the former president’s health” but also expressed concerns that he believes the prior administration did not provide “accurate information about what he was actually dealing with” during his presidency.

Former vice president Kamala Harris, who served under Biden, said in a post on X that she and her husband, Doug, are keeping Biden “and their entire family in our hearts and prayers during this time.” 

“Joe is a fighter — and I know he will face this challenge with the same strength, resilience, and optimism that have always defined his life and leadership,” she said. “We are hopeful for a full and speedy recovery.”

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House and a fellow Catholic, said she and her husband, Paul, “join millions across the country and around the world praying for him to have strength and a swift recovery in the battle against cancer” in a post on X.

Current House Speaker Mike Johnson also said on X that he and his family “will be joining the countless others who are praying for the former president in the wake of his diagnosis.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on X that he is “praying for President Biden and the entire Biden family,” and Senate Majority Leader Thom Tillis said he and his wife, Susan, “are saddened to hear about President Biden’s prostate cancer diagnosis and are praying for his full recovery.”

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Three conclaves set the stage for the moment when Pope Leo XIV stepped out onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, stunning the world as the first U.S.-born pontiff elected in just four ballots: the conclave depicted in the quiet Oscar-nominated movie; the conclave envisioned by the media frenzy; and the actual secret votes of a College of Cardinals who barely knew each other.

The first, the award-winning movie “Conclave” starring Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci, portrayed a group of conniving cardinals vying for political power. Anyone on a long flight to Rome between Pope Francis’ death and the selection of his successor would have seen plenty of screens showing scarlet robes, skull caps and Michelangelo’s “Final Judgment” at the Sistine Chapel.

The second conclave was the one predicted by the media, which descended on the Eternal City eager for angles to satiate the curious public. Lists of “papabili,” or contenders to become pope, stories of intrigue and polarization, smear campaigns aimed at tarnishing the reputation of the cardinals — they all escalated the stakes, giving the watching world a scene to match the one on the silver screen.

Some cardinals admitted to watching the movie, as, having been appointed by Francis, they weren’t sure what to expect once they entered the conclave. But the six cardinal electors interviewed by RNS, some under the condition of anonymity, all insisted the election of Pope Leo XIV was poles apart from the versions depicted by Hollywood and predicted by the media.

“I imagined it would be different,” said Cardinal Jamie Spengler, archbishop of Porto Alegre in Brazil, who has been a cardinal only for six months and was unsure of what to expect from the conclave. Instead, he said, “we truly had a space of fraternity, faith, prayer and silence that you cannot imagine.”

For these conclave participants, the name of Cardinal Robert Prevost emerged as if “breathed from the Holy Spirit,” without kingmakers or campaigners.

But the cardinals agreed it was the Americas, North and South, who first backed the Chicago-born prelate, gaining momentum over the four votes as they offered a compromise candidate to the fragmented camps.

Pope Francis would often urge faithful to “make a mess,” or “parresia” in the ancient Greek term. Even in death, Francis was a disrupter within the institution, having radically transformed the College of Cardinals to lasting consequence.

He created the most geographically diverse crop of cardinals in the church’s history — handing red hats to places that have never had a cardinal before (such as Mongolia and South Sudan) — representing 71 nations on five continents. He also held fewer meetings of cardinals at the Vatican, meaning many of them were strangers when they met to elect his successor. Most cardinals had never participated in a conclave before, and their inexperience allowed them to walk into the secret gathering with a willingness — even a desire — to be awed.

Most of the cardinals told RNS they were profoundly moved by Francis’ funeral and the overwhelming display of love, affection and gratitude of the faithful who came from around the world. A cardinal’s job is to get people interested in Jesus Christ, one cardinal said, and the sight of people lining up for hours to pay their respects to Francis was an encouraging sign the church is still relevant today.

They walked into the conclave mindful of the responsibility to elect someone who could capture the attention brought by Francis’ death. In their minds, the words “feed my flock,” Jesus’ command to Simon Peter in the Gospel, echoed as a call to elect a pastor. The reading had been chosen by Pope Francis for his funeral, and they had reflected on it again when they said Mass in their titular churches in Rome ahead of the conclave.

The next time they would hear that reading would be at the ceremony inaugurating the start of Pope Leo XIV’s papacy.

Fame matters

As the cardinals gathered for general congregations before the conclave, there were few faces they immediately recognized. After the first day, they asked for name tags to identify one another, and they were handed a book from the Vatican with biographies of each one. When someone stepped forward to speak to the congregation, a large picture of them would appear on the screen behind them and the cardinals would quickly check to learn more about who was speaking.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state under Francis, was an immediately recognizable name and face. So was Cardinal Angelo Becciu, whose name was at the center of a financial scandal that led to Francis stripping him of his cardinal rights, including participating in the conclave.

Cardinal Prevost also gave a speech at the general congregations, the cardinals confirmed, but they didn’t remember much of what he said. “It was the way he engaged in the smaller groups” that was impressive, one told RNS.

Plus, he was a familiar face to the cardinals, having served in an influential role at the helm of the Vatican department overseeing bishops.

“Many of us would have spoken to him at least one or two times” before the conclave, one cardinal said.

Cards on the table

When the doors of the Sistine Chapel were closed, following a 45-minute homily by Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, the cardinals cast their initial votes.

Parolin emerged with a substantial number of votes, between 40 and 50, but far from the 89 votes needed to achieve the two-thirds majority. Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdo also had some support behind him, the cardinals told RNS, especially from conservative cardinals who appreciated his emphasis on doctrine, tradition and clarity.

Surprisingly, the more progressive prelates failed to build consensus behind a candidate. Maltese Cardinal Mario Grech, Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle and even the up-and-coming Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, also of the Philippines, could not muster a handful of votes.

But a sizable number of votes coalesced behind Prevost, leading many cardinals to take a second look. After the black smoke emerged at 9 p.m. on the first day of voting, the cardinals returned, exhausted, to Domus Sancta Marta to discuss names over a warm meal.

They sat at tables mostly according to language groups, the cardinals said, but they overheard the English “good night” more often than the Italian “Buona notte” or the Spanish “Buenas noches.”

The Americas united

It became clear Prevost, who served for more than two decades in Peru before coming to the Vatican, had garnered support among the 21 Latin American cardinals, representing 18% of the votes. But there were also U.S. cardinals who knew him and promoted him early on. Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark had a longstanding relationship with “Bob” for decades and, in the days leading up to the conclave, told journalists he believed Prevost had a good chance of becoming pope.

Some of the more conservative U.S. cardinals had put their weight behind Erdo in the first vote but were quick to shift gears once it became clear Prevost was gaining momentum. There were 16 cardinals from North America at the conclave, 10 from the U.S. and six from Canada, and most ultimately rallied behind the cardinal from the Americas.

The support behind Parolin was fragmented and easily swayed, according to the participants who spoke with RNS. Some cardinals opposed Parolin’s leadership role in signing a controversial agreement with China on the appointment of bishops, while others were critical of his handling of financial scandals in the Vatican. But most of all, the experienced diplomat and Vatican bureaucrat lacked what the faithful had so strongly asked for in the wake of Francis’ death: a pope who could also be a pastor.

As one keen Vatican observer said, “sometimes a great No. 2, doesn’t necessarily make a great No. 1.” And so the votes for Parolin, mostly curial members and Catholic moderates, began to shift toward Prevost.

Emerging consensus

Prevost had plenty of pastoral experience. Between 1985 and 1998 he was a missionary in Peru serving the poor and Indigenous communities there. In 2015, Francis made him Bishop of the Diocese of Chiclayo in the Northwestern region of Peru. 

And he had proven management skills as the head of the Augustinian Order between 2001 and 2013 and as head of the Vatican’s department overseeing bishops. He had also visited 47 countries where the Augustinian Order was present, giving him insight into the reality of the church on the ground around the world. Cardinals appreciated his leadership method, quiet and listening yet decisive.

Conservative cardinals found comfort in his background as a mathematician, theologian and canon lawyer, while more progressive cardinals looked hopefully at his interest in social justice issues. “He seemed to check all the boxes,” said Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago in an interview with NPR.

“His name just emerged, there was no effort on his part or anyone else’s to promote this. But as we looked at all the qualities that we identified, he seemed to make a good fit,” he added.

The only tick against him was being born in the United States, which in the past would have automatically excluded a cardinal from being a candidate for the papacy to avoid combining the church’s spiritual authority with the political influence of a global superpower.

But next to the other U.S. cardinals, with their larger-than-life charisma and stature to match, Prevost was small and shy. Cupich said Prevost “identified very much as Peruvian,” where he became a naturalized citizen in 2015.

As cardinals rallied behind Prevost, including a number from Asia and Africa, they recognized in him someone who could straddle both worlds, the developing and the developed. He could speak with authority to the existential demands of the Western world, grappling with technological revolutions and identity wars, while also recognizing the priorities of countries ravaged by famine, poverty, war and climate change.

A new pope

When Pope Leo XIV was elected with more than 100 votes, applause erupted from the cardinals in the conclave. After so many years of the media presenting the church as divided, the cardinals had achieved a peaceful transition of power in just four ballots over two days.

The new pope was not just deft at overcoming geographical divides, but he also offered the right compromise for differing views on the future of the church. Both progressive and conservative cardinals told RNS that with the election of Leo they had “dodged a bullet,” suggesting a concern the conclave could have tipped to one extreme or the other.

“We have someone who knows us and is aware of our challenges, knows our possibilities and potential,” Spengler said. “I think the church can advance under him in communion and unity.”

In his first week as pope, Leo XIV made efforts to encompass different factions of the church, and in his homily for the Mass that inaugurated his ministry as pope on Sunday (May 18), he made an appeal for unity:

“In this spirit of faith, the College of Cardinals met for the conclave. Coming from different backgrounds and experiences, we placed in God’s hands our desire to elect the new Successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome, a shepherd capable of preserving the rich heritage of the Christian faith and, at the same time, looking to the future, in order to confront the questions, concerns and challenges of today’s world. Accompanied by your prayers, we could feel the working of the Holy Spirit, who was able to bring us into harmony, like musical instruments, so that our heartstrings could vibrate in a single melody.”