The 3 Most Fascinating Details from The Wall Street Journal’s Deep Dive Into How Pope Leo XIV Triumphed at Conclave
Newly elected Pope Leo XIV appears at the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, Thursday, May 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
A fascinating deep dive published by The Wall Street Journal sheds further light on how Cardinal Robert Prevost became Pope Leo XIV this week.
Here are the three most compelling details that have emerged in the days since the conclave at which Prevost triumphed.
LEO SEEN AS CONTINUATION OF FRANCIS
According to the Journal, Prevost’s ability to carry on the late Pope Francis’s legacy played a huge part in his election, as the cardinals responsible for picking Francis’s successor were looking for someone who shared the last pontiff’s “dream of an inclusive and humble church—but who showed more deference for Catholic tradition and stronger managerial skills to run a financially strained city-state of global reach.”
Key to Prevost’s success was as speech he delivered the day before the conclave started in which he emphasized “synodality,” or “gatherings of bishops and laypeople to discuss the church’s challenges,” a pet project of Francis’s.
THE RUNNER-UP WAS AN ITALIAN WHO ENTERED AS THE FAVORITE
The favorite to assume the papacy heading into the conclave was reportedly Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who had served as the Vatican’s secretary of state under Francis.
Per the Journal, Parolin led on the first ballot and boasted the support of his fellow countrymen, who believed it was time to return an Italian to the position after three foreign popes, but was hampered by his lack of emphasis on synodality and the Italian bloc’s struggle to connect with the diverse group of cardinals it would need to turn to Parolin’s side.
“Parolin was the favorite to succeed his former boss and satisfy Italian yearnings to recover an office the peninsula held for most of the church’s 2,000-year history. But as an Italian saying goes, ‘He who enters the conclave as a pope leaves as a cardinal,'” observed the Journal.
LEO HAPPENED TO SIT IN THE SAME CONCLAVE SEAT FRANCIS DID WHEN HE WAS ELECTED
American Cardinal Timothy Dolan revealed what the Journal characterized as “an auspicious coincidence.”
At the conclave, Prevost sat “in the same spot in the Sistine Chapel where Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio had sat at the 2013 conclave that elected him as Pope Francis.”
