Catholics around the world are celebrating a new pope today. After only two days of voting in the papal conclave, the College of Cardinals elected the Catholic Church’s first ever American pope.
Cardinal Robert Prevost, 69, was elected on Thursday, May 8, and took the name Leo XIV for his papacy.
But why do popes choose a new name when they’re elected? Here’s what to know about the conclave process, a list of contenders that were favored for the papacy, a little bit about Pope Leo XIV and why popes choose a new name once elected.
How long does a conclave last?
Conclaves in the Catholic Church take “as long as needed,” which once meant it could take years, but in the 20th century has whittled down to just a few days.
“The papal conclave – which has remained virtually unchanged after more than 800 years – takes as long as needed. Over the centuries, it has taken hours, days, months and even years for a successor to be named,” USA TODAY reported.
In 2013, Pope Francis was elected after just over a day of voting. The longest conclave in history was in 1268, when it took nearly three years for the College of Cardinals to elect Pope Gregory X, according to EWTN Vatican. The average modern conclave is much shorter, lasting from around two to five days.
This papal conclave was also incredibly short. White smoke rose from the Sistine Chapel on Thursday, May 8, just one day after conclave began on Wednesday, May 7.
How is the new pope chosen? What does white smoke mean?
In the Catholic Church, each new pope is selected through the traditional practice of a conclave. According to Merriam-Webster, “Conclave comes from a Latin word meaning ‘room that can be locked up.’” Most simply put, the word conclave refers to a private meeting.
In a papal conclave, cardinals from around the world convene and are locked into the Sistine Chapel for up to four rounds of voting each day, day after day, until they reach the required two-thirds majority vote to elect a new pope.
If someone still doesn’t have the majority vote after 33 rounds of voting, the top two candidates face off in a run-off vote. The group of cardinals that convene are called the College of Cardinals.
“Since 1975, only those younger than 80 are able to participate in the papal conclave,” USA TODAY reported. “As of Jan. 22, there were 252 cardinals, of whom 138 are electors, according to the Vatican.”
At the end of each day of voting, the cardinals burn slips of paper that create black smoke to billow from the chimney as a sign to Rome that the new pope has yet to be chosen. On the day the cardinals reach a majority vote, they burn slips of paper that create white smoke, as a sign to Rome that a pope has been chosen and has accepted the papacy.
Today, Thursday, May 8, white smoke poured from the Sistine Chapel chimney, signaling that a new pope was chosen after just over a day of voting.
Who is the new pope? Where is Pope Leo XIV from?
Cardinal Robert Prevost, an American missionary from Chicago who’s spent his career in Peru, was named the 267th pope on Thursday.
Prevost was not widely seen as one of the top contenders heading into the conclave. Not only was he not a top contender in most lists predicting who would be elected, but the choice to elect an American pope is a very significant one. Of the 266 popes that came before him, none were from the U.S. His predecessor, Pope Francis, was the first ever pope elected from the Americas.
Since Pope Francis’s hospitalization early this year, there was ongoing discussion over some of the more prominent cardinals who were favored for the pontiff, including:
When was the last American pope? Where is Prevost from?
There’s never been a pope from the U.S., until today. Cardinal Robert Prevost is the second pope from the Americas and the first pope from the U.S. He was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. He spent the majority of his career ministering in Peru.
Pope Leo XIV attended Villanova University and Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, before earning a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical College of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.
Why do popes change their name? Cardinal Prevost’s first words as Pope Leo XIV
Pope Leo XIV’s first words as pope were “Peace be with you,” according to the AP.
“From the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica, history’s first American pope recalled that he was an Augustinian priest, but a Christian above all, and a bishop, ‘so we can all walk together,'” the AP reported live.
“He spoke in Italian and then switched to Spanish, recalling his many years spent as a missionary and then archbishop of Chiclayo, Peru.”
The reason why popes choose a new name for themselves when elected is to symbolize the direction they hope to take their papacy and set the tone for their time as pope.
“A longstanding tradition has it that Popes change their names from their baptismal name, though it hasn’t always been the case, especially in the first centuries of Christianity,” according to Vatican News.
“Popes have often chosen the names of their immediate or distant predecessors out of respect, admiration, or recognition to mark continuity, but also different names to mark innovation.”
Why is the new pope called Leo? Significance of Cardinal Prevost’s papal name
While Pope Francis chose a never-before-used papal name to signal the innovation he intended to (and did) bring with him to the papacy, the new pope chose to re-use a papal name that was used thirteen times. And although that papal name has been used before, the last pope to call himself Leo was more than 100 years ago.
Pope Leo XIV is, as the Roman numerals indicate, the fourteenth pope that will be called Leo. According to Catholic priest and blogger Ed Tomlinson and the UK-based newspaper The Independent, Pope Leo XIV’s choice could be seen as a continuation of Pope Francis’s liberalization of the church.
“The papal name Leo unsurprisingly shows a Pope who is going to be strong during a time of crisis, historically,” Tomlinson told the Independent.
The last pope to take this name, Pope Leo XIII, was the leader of the Catholic church from 1878 to 1903. Around two weeks before Pope Leo XIII’s Feb. 20 election in 1878, Greece declared war on Turkey.
The first pope to take the name, Pope Leo the Great, led the church from 440-461. Pope Leo the Great, one of only three popes to be called “the great,” was known and is remembered for his contributions to the Catholic Church and defending Rome and the papacy during a very tumultuous period of time for the Roman Empire.
If you don’t know, the mid-400s in Rome were marked by economic decline and invasions. The Roman Empire fell shortly after Pope Leo the Great’s papacy, in 476 A.D.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Why do popes change their name? What we know about Pope Leo XIV’s election, name choice
Reporting by Lianna Norman, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Florida Today
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
