We have a new Pope! Who is Pope Leo XIV?

NBC's Rory O'Neill reports on the background of the newly elected, American-born Pope

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Six forty six, Mike Elliott, Columbus This Morning News over
to Rory O'Neill NBC News Radio on the Legacy Retirement
Group dot com phone line.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Were you as shocked as I was yesterday afternoon? I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
It is maybe about we got the white smoke around
twelve thirty, twelve forty five, and a little after one
o'clock we learned that it was an American, the first
ever in the two thousand years, Rory of the Catholic Church,
the first ever American pope.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
I my jaw hit the floor.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:26):
And the Chicago guy, and you know, he delivered a
Mass the first time as Pope Leo a short time
ago or earlier today, and spoke a bit in English
before speaking in Italian.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
And it's just fascinating to hear a pope.

Speaker 4 (00:39):
You know, speak with a Chicago accent.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
What's really expected?

Speaker 1 (00:44):
I know, I mean it's uh, I mean, he does
speak five languages. Very intelligent guy, as you said, he
was born in Chicago, went to Villanova, spent most of
his time working for the church in Peru.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
He has dual citizenship there.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
That had to have some play with his sort of
you know, South American roots, spending a time there. He
was a cardinal there for a number of years, so
that had to come into a into some sort of factor.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah, I had laughed. One of the descriptions was he
was the least American of the cardinals. Funny, but look,
there are also there are ten American cardinals in there.
That's the second largest group, only behind the Italians. So
you know that's a big component when you need eighty
nine votes. If he can get ten sort of locked down,
that's pretty good. But it's I think it's all fascinated

(01:37):
the fact he chose the name Leo, either as Pope
Leo the thirteenth and what he meant for the church
back at the turn of the last century, and how
he sort of steered away from Marxism and bridged the
divide with capitalism, or whether he's referencing Brother Leo, a
thirteenth century friar who was the companion of Saint Francis.

(01:59):
So the sea okay, of course, the answers of the
CC is the name that his predecessor took named after him,
so sort of signaling that it will be his leadership
will probably be in a similar tone as Pope Francis.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah, it's fascinating how this all works out in the
symbolism with the name choice and all of that. And
as you point out, they are expecting him to lead
the Catholic Church much like his predecessor.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Is that what you're kind of hearing as well?

Speaker 5 (02:29):
Yeah, it's interesting though, So I think it's going to
be much more like him in terms of messaging about
helping the poor, helping refugees, that kind of thing, spreading
the faith, but it might be more conservative when it
comes to church.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
Teachings individually and what happens inside the church and some
of the social issues like homosexuality in the church, that
kind of thing. He may be more conservative on that bent,
but very similar to Francis outward facing on global issues
like poverty,