From Robert Prevost to Leo XIV, a year after the Synod that elected the unknown pope

With everything ready for the conclave to elect Francis' successor, Robert Prevost was not on any list of prospective popes a year ago. In fact, many, even among those in charge of voting, did not even know who this prudent and silent Augustinian American with a Peruvian soul was.

Not even the prelates of his country thought of him, no longer as a future pope, but as a compatriot. His many years of mission in Peru and his subsequent periplus in Rome as the person responsible for appointing bishops made him an outsider.

"A bridge builder"

However, in hindsight, Prevost met all the qualities that the prelates and the Catholic Church were looking for and needed after the Francis earthquake. In particular, the one that everyone emphasized about him, in the words of Cardinal Dolan: "He is a bridge builder."

"What the cardinals were most concerned about, at least according to my conversations with them, was who among us can bring us together, who among us can strengthen the faith and bring it to places where it has been weakened," said Cardinal and Archbishop Emeritus of Washington Wilton Gregory, who stressed that it was "the desire to strengthen the Christian faith among God's people" that led to Prevost's election as pope.

Being an American never weighed in Prevost's choice

Being an American was never a consideration. Neither positive or negative, as Donald Trump pointed out. Simply, the goal was to get someone capable of closing the wounds between the followers of Bergoglio's progressive vision and the conservatives. None of the favorites among the two camps seemed to fit that profile.

One of the first to include the future Leo XIV among the favorites was Spanish Vatican journalist Jesus Colina. He pointed him out as a serious contender, and he did so from the facts. Because, despite the fact that his caution, humility and restraint made him stay away from the media spotlight, Francis had bet strongly on Prevost.

At the antipodes of Francis (in the forms)

His appointment as prefect of the Dicastery of Bishops, and member of almost all the other dicasteries, with the function of studying and proposing the appointments of prelates around the world, also gave him the opportunity to dispatch directly and every week with the Argentine pope.

His conciliatory profile, far from Francis' histrionics and taste for provocation and controversy, made him someone to be taken into account to lead the Catholic Church in the midst of the current turbulence in the world, especially after Trump's arrival in the White House.