Just days ago, I sat in a Roman café with veteran Vatican journalist Jesús Colina, author of the book Pope Leo XIV. We were speculating about possible papal candidates, tossing around familiar names. Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, though well-respected, wasn’t at the top of our list.
“This is not at all what we were expecting,” I told Colina as we met again to reflect on the surprising election of Pope Leo XIV.
“Yes,” Colina said, smiling. “But in January 2023, I wrote an article and in the headline I wrote: ‘Prevost is the next papabile.’ So, I did see the possibility.”
He recalled that moment vividly. “When he was nominated as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and I wrote his bio, I said: this is a probability. He had everything you want in a pope. Yes, he was American, but he had this missionary vision in Peru. He was a son of Augustine, which makes him an incredibly deep mind. And he was advising the pope on who would be the next bishops — the next pastors. So, it was clear.”
Still, even Colina admits he was hesitant before the conclave.
“In the last two years, I asked people working in the Vatican, ‘How is he doing?’ And they told me, ‘He’s very simple, very quiet. We don’t see him.’ So, I thought: maybe not. But that simplicity — that humility — was the very reason the Cardinals saw something in him that we didn’t.”
He paused, recalling the moment he saw the new Pope appear on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.
“When I saw him on the loggia, I understood. The Cardinals saw things we hadn’t seen.”
A swift and symbolic election
The white smoke that signaled Pope Leo’s election rose on just the second day of the conclave. I asked Colina what that swift decision said about the state of the Church.
“I was in St. Peter’s Square when the fumata bianca appeared,” he said. “I was under terrible stress — wondering who it would be. I needed to write a book about him in three days!”
As he raced home, he turned on the radio. “The journalists were saying, ‘It must be an Italian. Only an Italian could unify the cardinals so quickly.’ But it wasn’t. Why?”
Colina believes Pope Francis himself had long recognized something special in Prevost.
“When he was Superior of the Augustinian order, Francis called him. They had disagreements, but they became close. He called him to be a missionary bishop and then brought him from Peru to the very center of Christianity. I am sure he told some of his closest collaborators — cardinals — that Prevost was a good idea.”
The pope of unity
So what does Pope Leo’s election say about the Church at this moment in history?
“This conclave was very different from the one that elected Pope Francis,” Colina explained. “That conclave gave a specific mission: Reform the Vatican Curia. This conclave didn’t give a task. It gave a ‘great commission’: unity.”
The message, he said, was urgent. “Today, more than at other times in the Church, there is a real risk of division — even schism. The priority was: find someone who can create unity. And they saw that in Leo, because of his humility.”
His American identity, Colina added, is no small factor.
“In recent years, the relationship between the American bishops and the Vatican has not been easy. For the American bishops, it was sometimes hard to understand Jorge Mario Bergoglio — and that was painful for everyone. Now we have an American Pope who can be a bridge between the Vatican and the American Church. That’s very, very important.”
A pope formed by his culture
One analyst compared Leo’s election to the selection of Pope St. John Paul II at the height of the Cold War. Just as John Paul II understood the Communist threat from within, Leo XIV seems to understand the spiritual threat posed by secular materialism.
“I agree,” Colina said. “When he entered the seminary of the Order of Saint Augustine, he discovered that a human being can only be happy when he finds meaning. For him, the biggest risk for the human person is materialism.”
He believes the new pope will challenge the modern culture of success.
“American culture puts money and success before meaning. Leo understands the suffering, the loneliness our culture produces. He’ll be a prophet for that culture. Just as John Paul II understood the problem of Communism, Pope Leo understands the problem of a culture chasing success without purpose.”
Colina pointed to a speech the then-cardinal gave to the Synod of Bishops in 2012.
“He spoke about a culture without meaning, without spirit. He was talking about America. And now he can speak into that void — not just for Americans, but for the whole world.”
The early signs
Already, the signs of Leo’s papacy are emerging. His first words on the loggia — “God loves us, each of us. Evil will not prevail” — struck a chord.
“‘Evil will not prevail’ — that’s very American,” Colina noted. “He’s giving hope. He’s speaking to our hearts, not just our Catholic hearts, but to all people.”
He cited the transformation that occurs when someone becomes pope.
“When Bergoglio became Bishop of Rome, he changed. He gained an interior freedom. He realized: ‘Now I must do what I think needs to be done.’ Leo XIV will change too. He doesn’t yet have a plan, a program. He will discover it as we will.”
What will guide him?
“The deepest conviction of his life: Augustine,” Colina said without hesitation. “Augustine is his friend, his master, his father. Augustine will be his coach. He will show him how to be a poet of God.”
And Colina recalled a story told to him by the former secretary of Cardinal Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI.
“I asked him, ‘Why was Ratzinger’s mind so extraordinary?’ And he said, ‘Because he spent two years of his life reading and meditating on Augustine.'”
For Pope Leo XIV, it seems, the journey has just begun. And like the great saint whose name shaped him, he may yet become the prophet this restless age didn’t expect — but deeply needs.
