Two NPR reporters who were in St. Peter’s Square when the conclave elected Pope Leo the 14th released a book this month called American Pope: Leo XIV’s Road from the South Side of Chicago to Vatican City.
Neither Scott Detrow, co-host of NPR’s All Things Considered, nor NPR senior editor of religion and spirituality Daniel Burke expected an American Pope to be elected that day. But Detrow says that the fact that Robert Prevost had such a steady personality made him, in some ways, an unsurprising choice.
“This is somebody who knew who he was at age 13, and I’m definitely not the same person from age 13 to 35, but in a lot of ways, Pope Leo remarkably was,” Detrow said.
Burke adds that Robert Prevost’s work as a missionary and then as a bishop in Peru gives him a worldliness that’s critical for the job.
“So while he’s very American—he's a White Sox fan, he loves pizza...he’s also this guy who’s been all around the world multiple times and can kind of speak to the reality of the Church, and people in all these situations around the world,” said Burke.
The book American Pope is now available.
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