Pope Leo XIV's ideological positions and what his election means for the...
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hi everyone and thanks for joining us here on CBS News 247 i'm Lindsay Riser a truly history-making day at the Vatican where the Catholic Church has elected its new leader this was the scene just a short time ago when Cardinal Robert Pvost of the United States came to the balcony in St peter Square after being announced as the new pope of the Roman Catholic Church cardinal Pvost who was chosen the name Pope Leo I 14th blessed the crowd after his speech shortly after the conclave made its final decision how we can together be a missionary church the church that builds bridges that is that is always open to everyone just like in this square to receive everyone to welcome everyone our charity our dialogue and love pope Leo I 14th is the first Americanborn pope to be elected ever the 69-year-old was born in Chicago before doing his missionary work in Peru he went on to be elevated to a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2023 now it took at least four rounds of voting over the course of two days to see this the white smoke billowing out of the chimney on the cyine chapel announcing the 267th pontiff out of the 133 cardinals who participated in the voting twothirds of them plus one had to agree in order to solidify the decision as you can see in these images tens of thousands of people have rushed to St peter Square to witness the spectacle and to celebrate the moment now we have team coverage of the new pope cbs News Pel contributor Francis Rocka is in Rome and CBS News PayPal contributor Candida De Moss is with me here in studio 57 frank we're going to go ahead and start with you first just your reaction what you make of the new pope and the reaction in the well it's remarkable i mean he was on some of the lists let's this doesn't come entirely out of the blue but late in the game everybody assumed that if we had a result this quickly it would be Cardinal Parolene because he was the the front runner without question and they we thought if somebody else is going to emerge it's going to take longer but that turned out not to be true and and and you know as journalists I think we were hoping for an exciting story and you know an Asian pope an African pope but this is no less exciting how would you describe him ideologically in terms of many of the issues uh that will be facing the church and that he will have to contend with his pope well it's an interesting question he served for the a little bit more than two years at the end of Francis's pontificate he ran the office for the selection of bishops so he was in charge of choos advising the pope on what bishops to appoint uh he kept a low profile on the most contentious neuralgic sensitive controversial issues but when he was in the previous pontificate at the under Pope Benedict the 16th and he was the head of the Augustinian order uh religious order he spoke in a more familiar way of that period about the culture war issues you know about uh homosexuality or about abortion about the the secular media and that sort of thing so it's interesting it will be interesting to see if that voice reemerges now that was sort of taboo was out of fashion during under Francis we'll see what happens under Leo yesterday you were telling me the longer this goes on the more interesting and unpredictable the process becomes do you think that this decision was made so quickly by design for the Cardinals to well I think there is that has been that pressure in recent dec not just in recent years but in recent decades the feeling that a long pawnclave will will be a problem and I think that there was a there is a lot of division in the church everybody knows that polarization grew to some extent francis revealed what was already there to some extent he exacerbated it uh for better or worse and I think there is there was a great desire for unity and they found they unified behind him i think he probably was able to swing a evidently a fair number of moderates at least maybe also conservatives behind him what's next for well it's a it's a good question one thing is interesting we were a lot of us were waiting to see if he came out onto the when he came out onto the lodge or whoever he was we still didn't know whether he'd been wearing the red cape the Mozzeta traditional uh vestment that was worn for this occasion that Francis assued francis said "I don't want to wear that." And that was the first sign that Francis is going to be very different well first sign after his name uh and so Leah has chosen to go back to tradition and that in that detail we'll see if that continues we'll see to what extent does he follow the model of Francis does he live in the apostolic palace that Francis didn't want to live in does he ride in small cars uh does he give the blessing to the journalists when he meets the journalists later as he probably will in a few days or Francis didn't bless the journalist because he said some of you are not Catholic so all these little deviations from tradition that Francis did will will Leo go back to them that that will be an interesting sign okay thank you so much Frank Rocka we appreciate you i want to turn now to CBS News paper contributor Candidas is also an Edward Cadbury professor of theology at the University of Birmingham in the UK what more can you tell us about Pope Leo he was known to the Cardinals right that's right because he's hold this administrative position in Rome for a number of years and that meant he was very well known to cardinals having traveled the world as head of the order of Augustans he had also traveled and he had spent a lot of his life in Peru so he's well known to South American cardinals in fact when he came out onto the balcony he greeted the Peruvian people he spoke in Italian as the new bishop of Rome and then in Spanish as hearkening back to that identity we had this global college of cardinals put together by Pope Francis and they elected a global pope someone who understands the global north being an American and someone who understands the global south as well he's also someone who has taken a vow of poverty who we should expect to follow Pope Francis's footsteps in missionary activity reaching out to the margins of the church and embracing humility moving forward what should we take away from his chosen papal name it's a really interesting name pope Leo the Great was known for two things as a great intellectual and theological reformer and our new pope has a doctorate in canon law and so we might expect that he too is going to clarify the church's teachings on central issues as Leo the Great did but Leo the Great was also known for meeting with Attilla the Hun and dissuading him from attacking Rome so we might also see this new pope as someone who knows that he has to stand up to the sort of strong men in the political arena right now what should we take away from his role as head of the order of Augustine well the or order of Augustine they have a vow of poverty they see themselves as living a life of service and great humility and universality as St augustine wrote about and he even quoted St augustine in his opening address so we should see him as very much in the mold of Pope Francis as embracing the whole world and taking us forward in this kind of role of a man of the people who walked the walk who isn't into the trappings mazetta aside and wants to see a Christian clergy that embraces its roots in poverty and
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