Tens of thousands of believers crammed into St. Peter’s Square exchanged confused looks when Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was announced as Pope from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.
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They knew cardinals pizza balla and parolin and tagle. But prevost?
A few people with mobile reception started searching online when the news began to wrinkle through the crowd.
“I think they have just chosen an American pope,” said Nicole Serena, 21, a student who is in Rome who is studying marketing.
Wait – An American?
Some faces fell.
“Maybe he’s a good guy?” Said Catalina Zaza, 27, an Argentinian art student in Rome who had rooted for Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines to succeed Pope Francis. “We don’t know.”
A little more than an hour earlier, when White Smoke had begun to throw from the chimney above the Sistine Chapel, the crowd burst with joy. “Habemus Papam!” The believers screamed.
Some people hugged. Others raised their hands to rejoice in prayer. Some briefly sang the Italian national anthem. Veugten shot forward to the basilica and grabbed tight in barricades to learn who the new pope would be.
Once he was announced, as Pope Leo XIV, the crowd began to sing, initially somewhat timid: “Dad Leone!”
Then Leo got out.
The people on the square guilded pleasure.
“Peace be with you,” he said in Italian.
Only when Leo Hulde was on Pope Francis, much of the collected seemed to be relaxed. Mrs. Zaza and her friend Sofía Basanes, 30, also from Argentina, started nodding at the calls of the new Pope for peace, justice, dialogue and love. Next to them, a young priest sobbed the eyes of an older nun with tears.
And when Leo started speaking in Spanish, the crowd broke out in enthusiastic applause. “He lived in Peru!” A man shouted in Spanish. “Peruuuu!”
Leo did not speak in English or called the United States.
Towards the end, Mrs. Basanes cried, along with quite a few others around her. “We have so much faith in the legacy of Pope Francis,” she said.
Mrs. Zaza, next to her, added: “In the beginning I was a bit suspicious, I didn’t know. But now I like it.”
“I think it’s good, the fact that he is an American,” she added, “because at the moment a big figure like Trump is in the government, maybe create a bridge between believers and, I don’t know, try to make this world a little more peaceful.”
Not everyone agreed.
“I am surprised and a little disappointed,” said Adam Mocarski, 31, who had traveled from Poland to Rome. “We all know about Donald Trump and Elon Musk.”
Fabio Vagnarelli, a 42-year-old Roman actor, said he had expected an Asian pope. His mother -in -law, Aurora de Rubeis, 75, a retired teacher, said she expected an Italian.
After listening to Leo, Mr. Vagnarelli said he was impressed by the message of the new Pope. Leo’s first words, he said, were “very human, very empathetic, very emotional.”
Two radiant Americans, Sean Sikora, from Oklahoma, and Cole Wendling, from Texas, grabbed an American flag while strangers congratulated them. “You won today,” shouted a tall man in a Canadian flag, into a crushed laughter of the crowd.
“Of the crowd there has been a lot of love, a lot of joy,” said Mr. Wendling, 29, as songs of “USA USA!” Broke out behind him.
Matthew Mpoke Bigg” Motoko Rich” Bernhard Warner And Josephine de la Bruyère contributed reporting.
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