What did I know? I was convinced and insisted that it would be a long conclave, likely four days at least. When the white smoke came on the fourth ballot – my own mom was the first to alert me – I uttered the first of many weary words that day.
It was the worst possible time. I was doubly and triply obligated that day. I was in a noisy room and had to put my phone to my ear to hear Cardinal Mamberti announce the Gaudium magnum from the loggia. Robertum gave me pause, and Franciscum clinched it. Hoo boy. I was not encouraged.
What did I know? Not much, clearly. Since that moment, every word and action by our new Holy Father Pope Leo XIV has shown the world something that Cardinal Mamberti said but, in our haste to know something else, most of us skipped over: We have a Pope!
Now everybody knows he is an Augustinian who served as a missionary in Peru, became a diocesan bishop there, and was called by Pope Francis to high office in the Vatican. Most shocking is that he is from here, the United States, the south side of Chicago, with garrulous brothers still there eager to assert his credentials, nay identity, as a White Sox fan. I am not sure about other US priests, but this gives me pause – he will be unimpressed by our American “magic.” Words he has uttered in the past have come out in snippets and clips, audio and video. Factions and partisans have claimed him as their own and rejected him as from the other side. All of this has been fascinating even as it has faded into irrelevance.
What I have seen since last Thursday is the highest office in the Church be inhabited by a priest who has a reverence for that office and a love for that Church. And while I have snarfed up every snippet and story I could find, one line has claimed my heart. Our fellow countryman has declared, I must make myself small.
Yes, the brother of those Chicago Prevosts, former neighbor and close or distant relative of many now rising for recognition, and grade school through seminary classmate of untold number of Americans, is already fading from view, so that the Successor of Peter be seen and at work in the Church and the world. Not only does he know it is not about him, he also is demonstrating to anyone with eyes to see that it is not about him. Didn’t somebody close to Jesus say, He must increase, I must decrease?
To take up the mantle of the prophet is not to change its color or cut. This is no time for individuality, much less idiosyncrasy. The burden is enormous, larger than any human capacity or talent. In time the personality of Leo XIV will be better known, but first the presence of Christ in His Church and the work of His Vicar on earth will be undertaken. His doing papal things in papal ways for papal reasons is soft breeze of refreshment. That this continue to be done with humility and in earnest is my fondest hope, nurtured by what I have seen and by contrary clues not seen.
Whether he himself be strong enough, savvy enough, and well-served enough to bring right and good order to the household of the Church cannot now be known. In my own lifetime a warmly welcomed Pope lived only 33 days. Good men have stepped into these shoes only to be thwarted by malice and machinations, for Our Lord Himself warned us that there is an enemy, and he sows his choking weeds.
For us to know now is not whether he be one of us or one of them, but that he is ours, and we are his. Whatever we thought we knew, now we know that our obligation is to give him our prayer as if his life depend upon it, because our life depends upon him. Praised be Jesus Christ! We have a Pope.
Monsignor Smith
