A grateful perspective from Saint Peter’s Square

Much ink has already been spilled on the topic of Pope Leo XIV, and I have no great insights to offer on how he will guide the Church.

I am reminded of a conversation a journalist once had with the late Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. The journalist asked him what great new ideas he thought his theology had brought to the world. Balthasar responded simply: “I have no new great ideas”.

That is how I feel in the present moment as well. Only time will tell. Therefore, now is not the moment for making all kinds of speculative prognostications. Now is the time to pray for Pope Leo, especially since he appears to be a man of prayer who listens to—and acts upon—the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Instead, I want to focus on the unparalleled drama of how the Church elects popes. I say the dramatics are “unparalleled” because they are. There is simply nothing else in the world of politics or religion to which it can be compared.

As I stood in the massive crowd assembled in St. Peter’s Square last week, and as the white smoke billowed from the Sistine Chapel to roaring cheers, I looked behind me past the thousands of people and saw the massive media platform abuzz with activity. It looked like the set from the old game show “Hollywood Squares,” which made me chuckle because I knew there were friends of mine up there. I could imagine myself saying, “Peter, I would like George Weigel for the block”, which is humorous only if you remember the show in question.

Humor aside, it also drove home to me the drama unfolding before me and its innate power to grasp the attention of the entire world. That power, I think, comes from two things.

First, what was going on was something of global significance because the Church still matters. People instinctively grasp that no institution in the world is more multi-ethnic, multi-national, multi-racial, multi-linguistic, and multi-cultural than the Catholic Church. It was the first true religion of “inclusion” in world history, a fact that subverted the power claims of Rome, its pagan substrate of moody, capricious gods, and the rigid social caste system which pagan religiosity underwrote as the natural expression of reality in its manifest asymmetry in power relationships.

The Church unleashed the revolutionary fire of a God—the One, True God—of pure love who has created all human beings in His image and who desires to share His divine life with everyone regardless of social status. And the world has never been the same. In many ways, in terms of modern perceptions, the Church has been a victim of her own success. Her moral and spiritual values are now simply assumed by modern secularity to be “the way things are” in a monumental act of historical amnesia. That forgetfulness now threatens the world with division and dissolution, as the ideological lie that the world can proceed as if these realities do not depend on the Catholic revolution that created them becomes ever more untenable.

People sense this in their bones, if not in their heads. In many ways, whether the world knows it or not, now is “the Catholic moment”. This is the energy that drives the world’s interest in the drama that unfolds with every conclave. Even the very Renaissance trappings of the entire affair are part of the internal logic of the drama. From the secrecy of ecclesial princes sequestered in a chapel festooned with paintings from Michelangelo, to the location in Vatican City State with its renaissance and baroque architecture, to the genius of alerting the world to the internal goings on of the conclave with colored smoke from a tiny chimney, the spectacle evokes a still relevant antique element that cuts against the grain of today’s digital matrix.

I hope this never changes since it is, I believe, part of its deeper symbolic significance and not an outdated relic of the past. It is precisely this antique element that imparts an ongoing allure for contemporary people who must endure the crushing pragmatic soullessness of modernity.

Secondly, I think the election of a new pope is an unparalleled drama, and all of the reality I just described is grounded in a historical apostolicity, especially, of course, the apostolicity of Peter. Catholicism is no mere mythology. It confidently traces its origins back to the real history of a real man–Jesus of Nazareth–whose appointed apostles were also real historical men whose historical successors changed the world’s history and forged a truly new world, which was radically transformed forever.

The bones of Peter lie beneath the main altar, and the remains of several other apostles, saints, martyrs, and popes are found all over Rome. The ancient Roman buildings are still there, mostly in ruins (with some exceptions), but they now stand as a silent but clear testimony to the passing glory of the kings of this world in stark contrast to the perduring reality of the Church founded on the rock of Peter.

The world knows this. The See of Rome truly is the heart and center of Christendom, even if the actual extent of Roman ecclesial power and jurisdiction is disputed by the East. There is, ecclesially speaking, no second or third “Rome” despite the very real importance of the Sees of Constantinople and Moscow. There is only Rome–the “rock” of Peter—and the high drama of conclaves gets its power from this fact.

I am reminded of a report that when Pope Benedict XVI was elected, Cardinal Francis George stood on the loggia off to the side and as he surveyed the cheering crowds below, thought to himself, “Where is Caesar now?” Caesar is long gone, but countless thousands were now in the square celebrating the successor of a simple fisherman, executed near that very square by Nero, whose triumph over Caesar, grounded in the grace of a Christ who was also executed by pagan Rome, could not have been more complete.

This is drama of the highest order because it is, in its sacramental power, a Theo-Drama. And the modern world, which thirsts for meaning and transcendence and a way out of its prison of pure immanence, is drawn to this interplay of divine and human freedom, made manifest in the condensed symbol of “mere human beings” agreeing upon who they think the Holy Spirit wishes them to elect. No other drama matches it because no other drama is grounded in this essentially supernatural and theological drama where God became man so that men might become like God. And that this process of theosis takes place historically and incarnationally as a kingdom that is in this world, but not of it.

As I stood in the jammed and crowded confines of my perch after the white smoke emerged, I thought that since it was a quick conclave, it most likely was going to be Cardinal Parolin. Most of the commentators had indicated he was a definite contender, if not the front runner, and if it was a fast conclave, he was the prohibitive favorite to become the next pope. I had heard rumors from various journalists I know who were here in Rome of a late surge of support for Cardinal Prevost.

But I was still shocked when I heard his name called out. A relatively young American pope was not something I thought would ever happen.

I must frankly admit that at first, I was disappointed. I wanted one of the well-known “conservative” cardinals and was hoping one of them could surprise us all with an unexpected election to the papacy. But as I glanced around and saw the exuberance of the crowd, including a diminutive Filipino religious sister next to me who was crying and jumping up and down vigorously with unvarnished joy, I tried to enter into the spirit of the moment.

I turned to the sister and asked her with somewhat forced excitement, “What do you know about Cardinal Prevost?” She answered, “Who?” And at that moment, I realized that in many ways, for the folks assembled in the square, the choice of pope mattered little.

And so I turned and looked up at the loggia as Pope Leo appeared, and as the crowd exploded with joy, I said a silent prayer asking for Saint Peter’s intercession on his behalf. I was standing very near the ancient Roman obelisk in the center of the square–that grand monument to Rome’s once mighty power—and as I glanced at it, I asked myself the same question that Cardinal George had asked: Where is Caesar now?

In that moment, I must admit that I had to choke back tears of gratitude.

Grateful to be there. Grateful for Peter’s courage and his triumph, by God’s grace.

Grateful to be a Catholic.