The Cushwa Center welcomed journalists Elisabetta Piqué and Gerard O’Connell to Notre Dame Rome on June 4 to deliver a public talk on their recent book The Election of Pope Leo XIV: The Last Surprise of Pope Francis (Orbis, 2026). The talk took place in tandem with the three-day symposium Modern Catholic Social Teaching in the American Anthropocene: Theological and Historical Perspectives on Labor and Land.
O’Connell and Piqué have covered the Holy See for decades; they met during Pope John Paul II’s pastoral visit to Ukraine in 2001 and later married. O’Connell, who has reported on the Vatican since 1985, is senior correspondent for America and has appeared on multiple outlets as an analyst for the conclaves that elected Benedict XVI, Francis, and Leo XIV. He is also the author of The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Account of the Conclave that Changed History (Orbis, 2019). Elisabetta Piqué is a correspondent in Italy and at the Holy See for Argentina’s La Nación. While she has covered the Holy See since the election of Pope Francis in 2013, Piqué previously reported on wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, and elsewhere. She is the author of Francis: Life and Revolution: A Biography of Jorge Bergoglio (Loyola, 2014), as well as Diario de Guerra: Apuntes de una corresponsal en el frente: Afganistán 2001–Irak 2003 (Norma, 2003) and Cien días en Ucrania: Diario de una corresponsal de guerra (Sudamericana, 2023).
Francis to Leo
In their book, O’Connell and Piqué argue that although Francis could not choose his own successor directly, “it was ultimately Francis’ shaping of the College of Cardinals that led to Leo’s election.”1 Their narrative of the days of sede vacante and the conclave itself strongly supports this notion of Leo as someone Francis would have chosen. Surrounded by intrigue and ceremony, papal conclaves are, in O’Connell’s telling, always a major focus of interest not only for the world’s Catholics but also for the governments interacting with the Holy See and for other religious leaders.
Part of the fascination—well served by the book’s investigative reconstruction of events—lies in the striking, at times comic convergence of the Church’s most carefully regulated proceedings with the inescapable fact of human limitation. O’Connell noted, for example, the discovery of an elderly cardinal’s apparently inadvertent smuggling of a forbidden cell phone into the conclave, as well as another cardinal’s mistakenly duplicated vote, which nullified an entire ballot.
While much less mystique characterizes the General Congregations that take place between a pontiff’s death and the beginning of the subsequent conclave, O’Connell and Piqué suggested it was during these meetings that the various papabili were whittled down to a select few cardinals with real potential to be elected pope. By the time the College locked itself within the Sistine Chapel on May 7, the journalists’ sources told them, Cardinal Prevost was already among the frontrunners.
O’Connell and Piqué did not describe Leo’s election as a foregone conclusion, but they did call attention to the many ways in which his career had prepared him exceedingly well by the spring of 2025. He had ample pastoral experience from his time as bishop in Peru; he had ample organizational experience as prior general of the Order of Saint Augustine; he was exceptionally well traveled; and his service as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops gave Prevost a front-row seat to both the inner workings of the Holy See and the Church’s outward direction through its appointment of local “pastors”—bishops—around the globe.
An American pope?
The authors touched on the matter of Pope Leo’s status as an American, which many around the world (including among the College of Cardinals) confidently assumed disqualified him for the role of Peter’s successor. Yet in reviewing Cardinal Prevost’s experience and deep service to the Church, especially as a missionary bishop, the cardinal electors concluded he was the man to lead the world’s oldest institution. O’Connell argued that at a moment in which the role of the United States in the world has fallen under sharp criticism from many quarters, an American dedicated to peace and justice evidences “the hand of God at work in history.”
During the session’s question-and-answer period, Nichole Flores (Virginia) asked O’Connell and Piqué about media consumption habits: Where did Pope Francis get his news, and where does Pope Leo get his? More broadly, Flores’s question involved how the pope stays informed about the world. Piqué recalled Pope Francis’s open embrace of his status as less-than-familiar with technology, contrasting it with Pope Leo’s facility with technology—shown not least by his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. (Piqué had noted earlier that very soon after the announcement of Cardinal Prevost as the new pope, his X account was deleted—though it had been following numerous Catholic journalists, including O’Connell.) O’Connell also reflected on the instant and monumental personal shift experienced by every new pontiff, referencing Benedict XVI’s characterization of his own election as the descent of a guillotine’s blade and Leo’s characterization of the papacy as a cross to bear.
Ricardo Cubas Ramacciotti (Universidad de los Andes) asked which were the most enduring and significant reforms initiated by Pope Francis that the authors expected Leo to continue. Piqué called attention to the tragic and even catastrophic circumstances that Leo witnessed as a bishop in South America, including the devastation of widespread poverty, political corruption, and pervasive violence in communities impacted by major global trends, such as climate change and massive (and multicausal) human migration. In considering the basic outlook of both Pope Francis and Pope Leo, O’Connell said, “there is no daylight between them on the fundamental issues.”
Brad Gregory (Notre Dame) asked the authors about a potential change in atmosphere at the Holy See after the April 2026 invective directed at Pope Leo from the highest levels of the U.S. government. O’Connell said that Roman perception of the United States had indeed changed significantly: the pontiff emerged with even clearer moral authority on the world stage. The journalist also suggested looking to Leo’s January 2026 address to ambassadors, in which he decried a new state of global affairs: “War is back in vogue, and a zeal for war is spreading.”2 (Later in the address, Leo referenced the timeless wisdom of St. Augustine’s City of God, which, the pope noted explicitly, had been written in the wake of the Visigoth sack of Rome in 410.) O’Connell argued that this talk, in which the pope heavily emphasized the dual themes of peace and multilateralism, provides the frame through which Leo views all diplomatic efforts, including those involving the United States.
Yet those who watched the end of the conclave on May 8, 2025—stunned along with the rest of the world to see a cardinal from the South Side of Chicago appear on the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica—know that the pope’s address to the diplomatic corps followed naturally from the start of his mission. Beyond international relations, the pursuit of peace has characterized Leo’s pontificate from its beginning, with his very first words to the world: “Peace be with you all.”3
Michael Skaggs (Notre Dame ’13 and ’17) is an independent historian and co-founder of Chaplaincy Innovation Lab, where he serves as director of programs.
1 Claire Giangravè, “2 new books reveal secrets, alliances behind Pope Leo’s election,” National Catholic Reporter, April 26, 2026, https://www.ncronline.org/news/2-new-books-reveal-secrets-alliances-behind-pope-leos-election.
2 “Address of Pope Leo XIV to members of the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See,” January 9, 2026, https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/speeches/2026/january/documents/20260109-corpo-diplomatico.html.
3 “First blessing ‘Urbi et Orbi’ of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV,” May 8, 2025, https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/messages/urbi/documents/20250508-prima-benedizione-urbietorbi.html.