May 8, 2025
Following the election of Robert Prevost as the new Pope today, YDS Communications asked professor Teresa Berger for perspective. Teresa Berger is Professor of Liturgical Studies and Thomas E. Golden Jr. Professor of Catholic Theology at YDS and the Institute of Sacred Music.
Here is our brief exchange:
Are you surprised by how quickly the cardinals made their choice?
No, I am not really surprised. Being elected on the fourth round of balloting is within the normal range.
What do you make of the election of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost as the new pope? As the first American pope?
On a panel at St. Thomas More two days ago, which was dedicated to the coming conclave, I said in front of a rather large audience that I would be truly shocked if the cardinals elected a person from the United States! Conventional wisdom, after all, always had it that leadership of the Roman Catholic Church would come from somewhere other than a reigning superpower. Has this conventional wisdom been proven wrong? Yes and no. In a sense, one might say that the cardinals actually went with another Pope from the Americas rather than the U.S. Certainly, Pope Leo XIV is U.S.-born, but he also holds Peruvian citizenship, which he chose after ministering in Peru for many years. He is fluent in both English and Spanish, with a very obvious love for the Peruvian faithful he served before Pope Francis called him to Rome.
Do you read a message in his election and, if so, what is it?
In my quick, first reading, Pope Leo XIV is a centrist choice. His name suggests as much: he did not want to be named Pope Francis II, nor Benedict XVII, and certainly not Pius XIII. But trying to ponder more deeply the choice the Cardinals made today, I wonder whether the election of a U.S.-born Pope who is Peruvian and so very clearly situates himself within the Americas (even addressing his beloved Peruvian parishioners in Spanish in his speech on the balcony of St. Peter’s) does not also send a specific message to the United States. Pope Leo XIV, after all, stressed: “Receive everyone. Welcome everyone. Build bridges.” This echoes words of Pope Francis that were clearly directed at political realities in the United States: “Build bridges not walls.”
So, after my initial shock at this outcome of the conclave, I am willing to consider this election a surprise that might actually offer rays of hope.
‘Rose Walk and Talk’: Video of Teresa Berger explaining how the Conclave works