Minnesota Catholics react as Robert Prevost elected first pope from U.S. in history
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Catholics across Minnesota reacted with surprise and excitement after Cardinal Robert Prevost, who took the name Leo XIV, was named the next pope on Thursday afternoon.
Prevost, a Chicago-born missionary who spent his career ministering in Peru and leads the Vatican’s powerful office of bishops, was elected the first pope from the United States in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church.
After white smoke poured out of the Sistine Chapel chimney, signaling that a pope has been elected to lead the Catholic Church, people across the state began gathering to react to the coming news together. Church bells rang to signal the selection.
Joan McLeod and Gailyn Ryan, who were at the Cathedral of St. Paul for a scheduled tour on Thursday afternoon, were overjoyed.
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“We have a pope!” they sang together. “An American!”
“Our church needs a pope. We need someone at the helm,” Ryan said. “They chose one rather quickly. That was a surprise to us.”
Reflecting on the choice of name
Johan van Parys, director of liturgy and the sacred arts at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, was surprised an American was chosen but said, “I’m very excited about it. It’s a good choice.”
He was particularly interested in Prevost’s choice of the name Leo XIV. The last pope to take the name Leo was Leo XIII, an Italian who led the church from 1878 to 1903.
That Leo softened the church’s confrontational stance toward modernity, especially science and politics, and laid the foundation for modern Catholic social thought, most famously with his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which addressed workers’ rights and capitalism at the beginning of the industrial revolution.
“If one can read into this, one might imagine that Pope Leo XIV, having worked in Peru and having worked with very poor people, that he will also want to continue to work to uplift those who are living in poverty and in difficult situations,” van Parys said.
Charlotte Cowdery, who is not Catholic but visited the Cathedral of St. Paul after the announcement, said she was also interested in the politics of the name.
“The last Leo that we had was a Leo who was pro union movements, pro worker rights in the Gilded Age of America, which is exactly what a lot of people are seeing in the economics today, so those parallels are really powerful.
“Even as someone who is not religious myself, I am always interested to see where the spirituality and morality line up with our political spectrum,” Cowdery said. “We all are affected by these giant political decisions that are happening, being selected by people who we don’t know. The Catholic Church has a lot of sway in the world and are spiritual leaders for a lot of people.”
Archbishop excited for pope who gets the American experience
Shortly after the announcement, Twin Cities Archbishop Bernard Hebda shared his reaction, also focusing on the name choice.
“The last Leo was the pope who really did the most, I think, to promote the social teaching of the church, which was certainly something that was near and dear to Pope Francis’s heart,” he said. “So the fact that he chose Leo would suggest that that’s going to be really important for him, and I think that’s what we were hearing in his opening comments today.”
Hebda said he was surprised to learn the cardinals had selected an American pope.
“How exciting is that? Just recognizing the experiences that he’s had that would be very similar to Catholics in our archdiocese — to have a pope, for example, who understands Catholic schools, or the struggles that parents go through to make sure that their kids can get a good education, somebody that has the same experience of the American church and the way in which our church is so multicultural,” Hebda said. “I think all of those things are really positive and bode well for Pope Leo XIV.”
Hebda lead a special mass at 5:15 p.m. on Thursday at the Cathedral of St. Paul to celebrate the news. He said his prayer for the pope is that he will be a source of unity.
College students burst into celebration
Students at Minnesota State University in Mankato watched the announcement together at St. Thomas More Catholic Newman Center, screaming and clapping when Prevost walked out.
“I’m really excited, just because he is American. I think the church in America is about to, like, explode in popularity.” said Eric Smith, a men’s peer minister for the center.
After decades of decline, the share of Americans who are Catholic has been stable at about 20 percent since 2014, according to the Pew Research Center.
“I think there’s a lot of young Catholics who want to see a return to traditional roots, and that’s just because we want it to be the church. We want the church basically to go back to where it was that strong, powerful church. And I think some people think that under Francis it got weaker, but I frankly don't think anything, really, you know — there was no weakening or anything. But I’m just excited to see where he takes the church,” Smith said.
At University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, students held a parade to celebrate the new pope, and one dressed in white robes rode around in the back of a white vehicle — a scene reminiscent of Pope Francis in the popemobile.
“USA! USA!” the students chanted. Later, they poured celebratory root beer floats.
Leader of state’s first Black Catholic church notes focus on ‘peace’
“I am shocked,” said Father Chris Collins, parochial administrator at the Church of St. Peter Claver in St. Paul, the state’s first Black Catholic church which today serves a diverse congregation in the city’s Rondo neighborhood.
Collins is a Jesuit, of a religious order within the Catholic church. He was surprised that the conclave chose another pope of a religious order, as opposed to one from a diocese. Pope Leo XIV is of the Augustinian religious order.
“That’s always been kind of a maxim that, first of all, there would never be a Jesuit pope, and we just had one of those in Pope Francis. And then, it was always understood there would never be an American pope because of all the influence of the United States, you know, geopolitically and so on, but then here we are. So it’s amazing.”
Collins said it’s notable the new pope spoke often of “peace” in his first speech on Thursday.
“Our congregation certainly loved Pope Francis and his humility and down-to-earth way of being and wanting to be with the people and a sense of humor and a real dedication to the poor and to the marginalized in the world, especially refugees and immigrants,” said Collins. “I presume a lot of that same focus will be present both in the communication of Pope Leo XIV, as well as his priorities.”
Rochester leader says election will help world understand American Catholics
An official with the Diocese of Winona-Rochester said he didn’t expect to see an American elected pope in his lifetime — but he said the election of Cardinal Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV will be beneficial to the church in the U.S.
The Rev. Will Thompson, vicar general of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, spoke Thursday at the diocese’s Chancery in Rochester, soon after Leo XIV was introduced at the Vatican.
Thompson said “it’s going to take a little while to get used to an American being selected as pope.” He said he hadn’t expected it, because of a perceived historical bent against the American church within the broader Catholic Church, stemming from America’s roots in democracy.
“The Church is not a democracy. The Church wants to hear from people and wants to understand the real life that people experience. But that doesn't make it a democracy,” Thompson said, in remarks livestreamed by KAAL-TV. “And so with America being a democracy, maybe having that independent spirit of Americans — that perception made me think we would never have an American pope in my lifetime.”
Thompson said he thinks the election of Leo XIV is “going to go a long ways in helping the world understand that the church in America is a faithful church, a church that desires to follow Jesus Christ and to let the Holy Spirit work in our lives.”
Thompson spoke Thursday while the bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Robert Barron, was in Rome to witness the events of the conclave.
Peruvian recalls receiving communion from Prevost
When Nicole Johnson watched as the new pope was announced, she couldn’t believe it.
“At first it was like, no way. Was he the actual priest who did the confirmation four years ago?”
Johnson is from Peru and lived in Minnesota until recently. (She’s also a part-time employee of MPR News.) She said Robert Prevost — now Pope Leo XIV — performed her brother’s and cousin’s confirmations in their hometown of Chiclayo, Peru, where Prevost was bishop. Johnson said she even received communion from Prevost at her brother's confirmation in 2021.
She said he was often part of ceremonies and activities connected to her school, which was Augustinian like the new pope, and appreciated his message during the pandemic.
“He used to lift our spirits a lot, because we were in the middle of uncertainty and really hard times, so he would try to mix his homily with this positive tone about, everything is going to be good and God is our forever friend,” she said. “He was really, really personable.”
Johnson said her community back home is gathering in celebration.
“They’re really happy, because it will allow the world to see what a great community of Augustinians we have in Peru and in Chiclayo.”
Pope Leo XIV is a dual citizen of the United States and Peru. In Peru, he is known as the saintly missionary who waded through mud after torrential rains flooded the region, bringing help to needy people, and as the bishop who spearheaded the life-saving purchase of oxygen production plants during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Peruvians in Minnesota already had hopes for his papacy, including Alejandra Burgos who is waitress at Mi Causa Restaurant and Bar in Burnsville.
She hopes his spiritual guidance will help tamp down crime and chaos in Peru. The country has experienced widespread political instability and violent protests in recent years.
She said she spoke about the pope news with some of the restaurant's Peruvian customers.
"We all reached the same conclusion: This is good,” she said in Spanish.
MPR News staff Andrew Krueger, Anne Guttridge, Feven Gerezgiher, Gretchen Brown, Hannah Yang, Jacob Aloi, Kaila White, Matt Sepic, Megan Burks, Ngoc Bui, Regina Medina and Tom Crann contributed to this story, as well as The Associated Press.