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May 9, 2025 16 mins

New Zealand's catholic leader says Pope Francis' legacy will live on under the church's new leader. 

69-year-old Robert Prevost was elected the new pontiff after the fourth ballot of the conclave yesterday, taking the name Leo XIV. 

He is the first Pope from the United States and the first from the Augustinian order of the church. 

New Zealand Archbishop John Dew voted in the conclave, and says in the ten days of meetings leading up to the vote, they discussed what's needed in the church and the world today. 

He says everyone was saying while they can't have a copy of Pope Francis, his initiatives should continue. 

He told Jack Tame the new pope has been a natural fit.  

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks ab.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Viva Edith Papa. The chance could be heard before his
name was even announced over Saint Peter's Square. Robert Francis
Prevos has become the two hundred and sixty seventh Pope,
and we'll be doing as Leo the fourteenth. Of course,
New Zealand's Cardinal John Due is at the Vatican and
took part in the conclave that selected Pope Leo, and

(00:34):
from Italy, he joins us this morning. Calder John, Welcome
to the show, Cure Jack, thank you very much, thank
you for being with us. First of all, I suppose
the obvious question tell us about the new Pope Jack.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
He is a very lovely person. He's well educated, He's
had great experience. I was born in the United States,
but spent quite a long time working as a missionary
in Peru and in recent years has worked here in
the Vatican and what we call the Congregation for Bishops

(01:11):
are responsible for bishop's appointments and all sorts of things
to do with bishops all around the world. He's very
calm and measured. He was very calm when his name
kept coming up yesterday. Everyone was sort of looking at him,
and he was just sitting there with a little smile
on his face. And when he was asked for did

(01:34):
he accept the election, he just stood up and said
in Latin that he did accept. And from there on,
really he's just, as I say, just been very natural.
He greeted the thousands of people in the square. We
had time to greet him ourselves at one stage yesterday afternoon.
So a lovely man, and I think we'll do a

(01:55):
very good job as totally O the fourteenth.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
This is prepped a funny question, but is it obvious
that people want to be pope?

Speaker 3 (02:08):
No, it's not. And if if it was obvious, I
don't think I'd get the votes. There was no one
who was obviously the area of one hundred and thirty
three in the conclave that you would think actually wanted
to decote. I'm quite certain of that. Do you know

(02:29):
no one would really look for a role like that
for themselves.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
No one, I don't think that, so, sorry to interrupt you,
no one sort of openly campaigning or anything like that.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
No, no, absolutely not. And so tell US's actually it's
not that it's not allowing as hard to sort of
lobby for yourselves at all. It's not it's not permitted.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
So tell us about your experience of conclave. I know
you probably get asked this every day, you know, I
think many of our listeners will have will have seen
the film, But tell us about your experience. What was
it like to be there for them, you know, for
that incredible moment.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
It was an incredible moment, well more than a moment, actually,
the whole sort of process from the time of Francis's death.
I think got here just a few days after his
death and was here in time for this funeral, and
by that stage the meetings of cardinals had begun, and
we had about ten days of meetings, not necessarily every day,

(03:36):
but most of the days between the general and the
start of the conclave. And in those meetings, this is
all part of the process. In those meetings we were
able to anyone had the opportunity to speak, and we're
encouraged to speak about the kind of person they thought
should be elective. There's the next pope, the kind of

(03:58):
issues that the church is facing today, the issues that
the pope might need to speak on, speak up about it.
In terms of world issues, you know, he needs to
be someone who's politically astute and as a world leader,
as Francis showed us he was. So that was part

(04:18):
of the lead up, and that of course was all
set in the context obviously of prayer every day and
also included nine days of masses of prayers of mourning
for Pote Francis. And then when we moved into the
actual conclave, we we all gathered in what's called the

(04:45):
Pauline Chapel, very close to the System Chapel, and processed
and quite solemnly to the singing of the Litany of
the Saints and calling on the saints of the plant,
including of course past popes, and then seeing a very
beautiful Latin him calling on the spirit of God to

(05:07):
lead us, and then the process began. So it was
an amazing I found it a very amazing thing to
be sitting in the System Chapel looking around at, you know,
the beautiful artwork and architecture and thinking what this is
what we hear about. It was all very calmly done
and very well organized in the way that we wrote

(05:32):
our vote on a name on our little card and
then processed up like an order of precedence from the
times that we had been appointed as cardinals, and of
course that took quite some time each each time there
was a vote, because there were one hundred and thirty
three of us, we saw an oath that we would

(05:56):
be truthful, that we would do a vote to the
best of our ability, that we thought this is what
God was asking of us to do. So it was
all set in that context, and I very amazing. I
think we all found it a very privileged moment. And
of course it became clear that the cardinal Prevos was

(06:20):
going to be was getting the numbers. It became quite
an emotional time. And well, I found it an emotional
time when he when he accepted and then was led
out to a room to be dressed in the in
the papal robes. You know, I saidenly had a tear

(06:42):
in my eye that how how emotional the whole thing was,
and that he came back into the into the Sistine Chapel,
we had a time, a little time of prayer together
with him, and then we all had the opportunities to
go up and greet him and as it were, sort
of lege our allegiance and say a few words to him.

(07:04):
I said to him that I'd had the habit of
playing every day for Perflancis, and I would continue doing
that for him. But then he think me, and I
think he knows that he needs the prayers of the world.
So it's a very emotional time. After that, we were
we followed him out of the Sistine Chapel and through

(07:25):
one of the big, magnificent halls at the Vatican, and
he was led out onto the central balcony, the loggia
of Saint Peter's, and some of us were privileged enough
to get out onto the balconies either side of Saint
Peter's and that was the most amazing experience to hear

(07:45):
the roar of the crowd as he as he appeared,
and the chanting if they started chanting via Papa you
along with the Pope. The two bands at the bottom
of it out in the Saint Peter's Square with guards
were there, and you know, just a huge crowd of
people chanting and and singing. And then he gave a

(08:09):
blessing and said a few words. I couldn't quite to
get all up because of the eCos, and he was speaking,
and he spoke in Italian, in Latin, and in Spanish
fluent in English too, obviously, but he didn't use English
at that stage. So at a very emotional time, in
a very privileged.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
Time, it sounds profound, John, That sounds sounds like just
an extraordinary thing to experience. So when that, when it
became clear, you say that that he had the votes
and that he had been elected pope? Do the cardinals cheer?
Do you clap? How does how does it? How does
it work?

Speaker 3 (08:49):
In that moment, as it became clear that he had
the votes, there was immediate applause that he had reached
that number. The voting hadn't quite finished, but he was acknowledged.
He stood up and just acknowledged, and then the vote
and the counting of the votes and the names of

(09:09):
a few others were ready out, and then it was
clear that he had the numbers, that he was elected Hope.
So the Cardinal President, as aware of the of the
conclave process, then asked him if he accepted the electionist Hope,
and he just said in Latin except that he does accept.

(09:32):
And then he would asked what name he wanted to
be called, and he just said Leo. So it's a
while since they've been a pope Leo last one was
Leo the Great and then yeah, that was he was
he was pope.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
He's got to have a name ready to go, as.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
It were, Yes, and he must have been thinking of
that over the large you know, the tree, as his
name was becoming more and more obviously, was thinking about
what he would be called.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, and so, John, do you and I know you
don't make your vote public, and of course we respect that,
but but do you and the other cardinals talk amongst
each other about who you're planning to vote for as
the process unfold? Is that something that happens, you know,
kind of you know, publicly within the conclave.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
In those in those ten days of meetings. That happens
more where you might chat and say, what do you
think of so and so? Or do you think he's
got the qualities? Does he have what's what what it
takes today to be to be pope? And of course
some of the cardinals you know that better, so you've
chatted a bit more with with some of them, So

(10:49):
you do talk about who and obviously it's it's all
part of the secrecy of the of the conclave. You
do talk about who you think might be the right person.
And I could just see that he was so calm,
and calm really was a word every time you looked

(11:11):
at him. He's just taking everything just so gradually, and
and from what I knew of him, I thought he
was going to be very good.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
You know, we we and those of us who work
in politics have noted that have late, there are a
few elections that have been influenced by Donald Trump. You know,
look at Canada and Australia within the last couple of weeks.
Do you think there's any argument that this is a
Trump election in a way or a Trump influenced election.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
Not at all, Absolutely not, No, No, it's the cardinals themselves. No,
not at all.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, but obviously there are so many things they need
to consider, so so so so John, when you when
you're there again, this might seem silly, but for those
of us on the outside, just such a fascinating process.
Can I ask just a couple of really simple things,
and especially in those meetings beforehand and throughout the whole process.

(12:07):
Where do you stay? So, where are you sleeping?

Speaker 1 (12:09):
What do you eat?

Speaker 2 (12:11):
And what do you speak? What language do you speak?

Speaker 3 (12:15):
Well? Okay, where do we start? I stay at a
at a Vatican's kind of a Vatican guest house. Usually
stay there, which is just outside the Vatican that belongs
to the Vatican, right at the end of the big
street that leads right up to Saint Peter's. I stay there,

(12:36):
and during those days of meetings, I had to walk
up the big long street every day and battle with
journalists as we tried to get into the hall we
were going to the meetings, and that was a couple
of times, a couple of times a day. We met
through the morning and then had a break, went back
to our places for lunch, and then started again sort

(13:00):
of midastinents till seventy them. So stay at places like that.
Some stay at if they belong to a religious order.
Leo is an Augustinian, so they have a place here.
So some august yes, which would stay at the Gesuit
place in different places. And then we had decided as

(13:21):
part of the meeting, we decided on the date of
the start of the conclave, which was the seventh of May.
So on the sixth of May we were all asked
to come to this place called Saint Demata, which is
right in the Vatican and where France has actually lived,
and Saint de Marta is a guest house where many

(13:44):
people who work in the Vatican live here permanently. They
are all asked to move out while we come in
for the conclave, And so Saint de Marta is completely
dedicated to the conclave over these few days, right, And
I'm still here at the moment. I will move out
later today. And it's within the Vatican. We were able

(14:07):
to walk over to the system chapel if we wanted to.
There were mini buses for those who didn't want to
walk over. What do we eat, same as anybody? We
need a beautiful Italian sero.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
Yeah, I mean, you know, like I said at the start,
it must, you know, be a profound experience to be
there for what is a kind of you know, indisputably
a significant historical moment like that, and to be the
only representative from New Zealand in that conclave. So, finally, John,
what should we expect from this pope? Do you think

(14:42):
knowing him as you do and having had a couple
of moments and knowing the kinds of conversations that have
happened behind closed doors, you know, what do you think
the rest of the world can expect from Pope Leo.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
I do believe that he will. While we were very
clear that we weren't voting or looking for a copy Francis,
I do believe that he will continue some of Francis's
initiatives which were important for the Church and for the world,

(15:18):
and he will immediately go into conversations with some of
the Vatican cardinals, in particular to look at the kind
of things that they believe needs to be addressed. He
will come up with his own issues as Francis did,
and put some issues on the world stage, for example,

(15:41):
human trafficking and finment change and the point of refugees.
You know, he might come up with something else which
is of international significance and which is to do with
people's lives. It might surprise us with that, as Francis
did it from time to time.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
When do you get to come home?

Speaker 3 (16:02):
And I was saying, it's a little it was a
little bit difficult because we didn't know how long that
conclave would take and when you made a book to
ticket for.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
So I heard this morning that the official inauguration of
Leo is on the eighteenth of May, so I will
stay for that. It's a little distance away, but I've
got no great urgency to need to get home, so
I'll stay for that and then make arrangements to come
home after the still organation or inauguration on the eighteenth. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
Well, well, look, thank you again for spending time with us.
We really appreciate it. Good luck a week and a
half or so, and you we look forward to seeing
you in your bank you.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
Thanks very much, Jack, all the best.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Just so good to be speaking with Cardinal John Due
after a pretty amazing couple of weeks, and sounds like
a pretty impressive couple of weeks still to come. Live
with us from Italy this morning.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to news Talks i'd Be from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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