The election of Cardinal Robert F. Prevost as Pope Leo XIV, the 266th successor of Peter, shows “truly God was at work” in providing the Church with “a great treasure we have in our shepherd,” Washington Cardinal Robert W. McElroy said May 14.
“I’ve known Cardinal Prevost for several years, he’s a very good man. He’s bright, he’s faith-filled, he’s kind, he’s patient. He’s a very hard worker,” Cardinal McElroy said. “He will be a splendid shepherd.”
Cardinal McElroy made his remarks during a noonday Mass at the Archdiocesan Pastoral Center in Hyattsville, Maryland, that was offered in thanksgiving for the election of Pope Leo XIV.
Noting that Pope Leo “had a wonderful relationship with the late pope,” Cardinal McElroy said the new pope “will follow much in the path of Pope Francis, but he will set his own pathway.”
More than 80 employees of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington attended the Mass that was concelebrated by the archdiocese’s three auxiliary bishops: Bishop Roy E. Campbell, Jr.; Bishop Juan Esposito, the Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington; and Bishop Evelio Menjivar.
Cardinal McElroy was among the 133 cardinals – and one of 11 who are either from, or have direct ties, to the United States – who entered the conclave May 7 to choose the 267th pope. Cardinal Prevost was elected on the second day of the conclave, surprising many Vatican watchers at how quickly the voting went.
The conclave began on Wednesday May 7, “and as the grace of God moved, it became overwhelmingly clear we were moving toward Cardinal Prevost,” Cardinal McElroy said.
“And you could see on the second day, it was becoming clear we were coming together for Cardinal Prevost. You could see the joy in everybody’s faces, no matter who they came in for originally, there was a joy there in the sense that truly God was at work,” Cardinal McElroy said.
Cardinal McElroy noted that the differences among the candidates for pope – such as where they are from or what have they done – “became very secondary.”
“All the factors that seemed to complicate the choice (of a new pope) dissolved in a moment of real grace,” the cardinal said, as the members of the conclave focused on “where is the grace of God calling us to move in the life of the Church, and who is God calling us to choose for this position?”
Participating in the conclave proved to be “a profoundly deep spiritual experience,” Cardinal McElroy said. He noted that as the cardinals processed into the Sistine Chapel, the choir chanted the Litany of Saints, “which reminds us that in this very important moment, we are not only praying among ourselves, and the people on earth, (but) the people in the kingdom of heaven, all those who have gone before us, the saints, are joining us in this task.”
“We were instruments of God’s grace, but it was God’s grace that was manifest and palpable in everything we were doing, and that joy was just overwhelming,” Cardinal McElroy said.
He said that because his seat in the chapel was underneath the ceiling fresco of “The Creation of Adam” painted by Michelangelo and facing the artist’s depiction of “The Last Judgment,” “it’s hard not to be overcome with a sense of God’s presence and God’s grace.”
He called it an “awesome responsibility of helping to pick, with God’s grace, a shepherd of the Church in every land and nation, for every people.”
In addition to Cardinal McElroy and the former-Cardinal Prevost, the other cardinals with ties to the United States who participated in the conclave were Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the archbishop emeritus of the Archdiocese of Washington; Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States; Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago; Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York; Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey; Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, retired archbishop of Galveston-Houston; Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, the former prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura; Cardinal James F. Harvey, archpriest of the papal basilica of St. Paul-Outside-the-Walls; and Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, camerlengo of the papal household.
“I always thought it (participating in a conclave) would be fascinating, but I had not realized the degree to which that experience is a moment of God’s grace on earth, not just in my life and the life of the other participants, but in the life of the Church,” Cardinal McElroy said. “It really was not our choice, but it was God’s choice.”
