VIDEO .
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, one of 133 Cardinal-electors who took part in a Conclave that culminated in the proclamation of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost as Pope Leo XIV, has spoken about the man who has succeeded Pope Francis as the 267th Supreme Pontiff.
Describing Pope Leo XVI as a "citizen of the world," Cardinal Nichols explained why his life experience and Catholic ministry provide the necessary ingredients to lead the Catholic Church:
"He was brought up on the south side of Chicago - the poorer side of Chicago. He has been the General Superior of the Augustinians twice - which basically means he's travelled the world twice - fulfilling those responsibilities. He's been a teacher, a diocesan bishop, and a member of the Roman Curia, and that's a combination of talents that, once we'd reflected on the life of the Church and what was needed at this time, made it pretty clear that here was a man who was bringing the right depth and breadth of experience to the papacy."
The press conference took place at the Venerable English College in Rome at 5pm on Friday, 9 May 2025.
TRANSCRIPT
good afternoon everybody thank you for
gathering this quite remarkable few days um there are three things I'd like to mention briefly the first is the experience of be being a member of the conclave the second is a little bit about Pope Leo and the third thing is for me from the moment we went into Santa Marta and therefore were the 133 uh the the became a a a quite remarkable spirit of fraternity of having a common purpose having a common uh dedication uh clearly people were from all over the world some I got to know more while we were there in Santa Marta without if I may the distraction of mobile phones and all the rest of it but it is remarkable to speak with a cardinal from Mongolia for example who is you know some of his churches are just tents that move with the people um and then from New York or even from Chicago which we come back to in a minute so there was a great spirit uh among the group of us i think secondly of prayer in the broadest sense of the word there's a difference between being in prayer and saying prayers but there was a a deep sense that here was a place in which there was enough silence there was enough recollection for me there's a very beautiful chapel in Santa Martr House and all of those things gave a profoundity a depth to the time we spent together and thirdly for me it was a time of great patience because the process of a conclave as laid down in the constitution is meticulous and we meticulously followed every single step that was in the book uh and that meant quite a lot of waiting so for example I think it was on television the opening um action which was each of 133 cardinals taking a solemn oath of maintaining secrecy and confidentiality about the details of what went on that took quite a long time and that even each vote took quite a long time so I learned a bit of patience and that patience actually can be creative as well as initially irritating so there some quick points I think about the conclave but with just one other the fact that we came to what was really of quite rapid decision just four votes uh I think has properly been attributed to the fact that Pope Francis left a college of cardinals that shared lots of his vision but even more of his spirit of this must be a church so secondly just a few words 14th i would describe him as a citizen of the world he's uh obviously he was brought up in Chicago for those who know Chicago on the south side which therefore is the much poorer side of Chicago the workingclass part uh he's been the general superior of the Augustinians twice which basically means he's traveled the world twice to fulfilling those responsibilities he's been a teacher he's been a diosis and bishop and he's been a member of the Roman curer and that's a combination of talents that I think once it emerged and we'd reflected on the life of the church made it pretty clear that here was a man who was bringing the right depth and breadth of experience to the papacy as a person i've known him for a few years he's got a very gentle manner he's very calm he's quite clear in his mind he can decisive i've seen him resolve difficulties in a way that didn't leave enemies behind him and he can hold people together in terms of governance he has a doctor in canon law so he knows how things should be done second thing about him and this gets me continuity you will have heard him say augustine." And that's a point worth now prior to the conclave in some of the comments I've made I've stressed that for me the interpretive key to the papacy of Pope Francis was his last encyclical dilexit nos he lives us now that encyclical is deeply rooted in the augustine and there we have a profound and clear continuity of theological and thought those who know much more about St augustine than I do say his theology is essentially effective it's of the heart so there's that famous phrase which many of you will know of St augustine our hearts are restless until they find their home in you and it's also his whole thinking is very centered on the person of Christ so when you look encyclical which is rooted in the relationship between the individual and the person of Jesus then you begin to understand why he was so deeply concerned about the poor why he wanted to draw attention to those to by nobody else gave attention to why he saw our dignity as never robbed from us and he showed that in so many gestures but this comes from the same root the same tradition that Pope Leo now stands for so even from an English point of view Cardinal Newman's heart speaks to heart core at core lotor that's from the same Augustininian source so we've got a lot now to learn i think we've gathered a lot from St ignatius of Lyola through Pope Francis and now we'll go deeper into that I believe with this Augustinian pope a second part of the Augustininian tradition comes in Augustine's writing about the two cities de Jivit day and there he explores the notion of building bridges with society and the the importance of dialogue and the interlocking of the heavenly kingdom with the earthly kingdom so you've got there a very profound basis from the fifth century for the kind of relationships between uh the church being in the world but not entirely of world tell me if I'm boring you okay another aspect of Austinian thinking in again in a very famous phrase is all about God's mercy and of course Francis began his pontificate and sustained the consistently augustine had a phrase that suicide the mercy of God would catch him between the bridge and the water man is throwing himself into the river to commit suicide but go Augustine taught that between the bridge and the water the mercy of God could catch him and bring him home and then he also Augustine as many of you will know had quite um a strong vision of the destructiveness of sin so he would have been one of those early who said once a society or a community or a culture loses its sense of God then it will very quickly begin to treat people badly cruy with indifference and all the rest of it so that too is I think a strength that that we will see in Pope Leo it was also pointed out to me that Leo uh and Augustine will put their focus on the person of Christ as you heard from the morning also somebody said to me that in 452 Leo the Great went to the edge of the city of Rome and persuaded Hiller the T the Hun to turn back so Pope Leo the Great was not afraid of absolute tyrants i think that's enough for me partly on the experience of the conclave partly on the person of Leo Leo the 14th and especially on the continuity that we have now going back certainly to Benedict who's a great Augustinian scholar benedict Francis and now Leo I 14th of course the other thing about the name Leo is that he was really the establisher of modern Catholic social teaching um speaking up for the cause of u oppressed workers in particular okay thank you yeah and you said that it required great patience in the conclave that the voting took a long time why was that was that because of the sheer number of cards or because somewhere in firm and why did that first black smoke take so long to come well the if you look at the constitution which is a perfectly public document uh it it describes in detail how each cardinal is to vote and it not only obviously involves writing on a piece of paper but then each cardinal and a queue goes up to the high altar at the foot of the last judgment and makes a promise so and then puts his vote in so if you do that 133 times it takes quite a while yeah the first evening I think it's fairly well known that father can gave a very long talk how long oh I was being patient wasn't I i would think he was an hour or more actually so one person commented it's his validtory address he's 92 93 father and it was splendid stuff yeah splendid yeah i don't know if the has the text no how long did you expect it to be i think if I remember it was suggested that it would be half an hour at the most patience is a good virtue out of learning yeah as somebody said patience is a virtue you can't easily demonstrate except by doing it humility is a bit more tricky the lovely saying was asked "Do you know of a good book on humility?" Yes he said "I wrote one." Anyway yeah you touched Eminence on Mongolia it's a lot made about the fact that there's 70 countries various languages was that an issue language and issue within this colleague from oh he he speaks good English actually i think it was English or it might have been Italian i can't remember and then um Ukrainian bishop from Australia the cardinal from Australia he again he's about 45 or 46 so there was a great age range yeah if this had been a few months later I would have been out because I'll be 80 in November yeah the language aspect was that the language during the general congregations there were translators right and there was no discussion in the cyine chapel so the conversations then were informal and people could get a bit of help if they wanted to explain something yeah that was all over the over breakfast and lunch and dinner and in between times in Santa yeah over those breakfast and lunch and dinners do you see people gathering by language or is there an effort to mix obviously you have people who speak French and Italian maybe English has become a language that like your colleague from Mongolia yeah yeah there was one one comment made in a general congregation which was quite pointed and the the speaker said English is the most commonly spoken language in the world followed by Chinese and Hindi Italian is the 26th or 27th most common language spoken in the world but probably not between the group of cardinals yeah but I wouldn't say the language was a problem no only during the general creation for no there weren't no well as you can see that there's plenty of polyglot austin during the general congregations you only had speeches we did we did chip did you feel frustrated by that because it sounds to me like the old civ before they started to introduce small groups you never really had an opportunity at least doing the congregations to to exchange did you do do you think is is that is that a source of frustration do you think the next do you think should should be reforming this process well what I would like to say is I remember from years ago when this point was made to Pope St john Paul II in the course of a sinned uh he said look everybody who comes here has a speak to everybody and that means you have a duty to listen to everybody and that would not happen in chly in in group meetings so I accept that principle that we should hear everyone who wants to speak and it's tiring it's demanding to listen to 20 or 30 speeches a day yeah do you think in addition to that they could be Well there's time limits weren't there because of the funeral the Well the funeral mass then the nine days and then we wanted to get on with it frankly yeah you mentioned there were occasions where you saw Leo take decisions decisively without leaving enemies behind and doing things in a way that was both you know he resolved his mind but didn't create bad this obviously before the complaint can you recall any specific incidents or chapters that endeared him to his fellow um that's slightly difficult for me uh in general terms without being too specific for the last what I don't know nine years I've been a member of the what do they call it now decry for the appointment of bishops and there's been a number of times in those meetings and as a consequence of them when he's done precisely that he handles a big meeting extremely well uh and when there has been difficult issues he's found a way yeah sorry Telegraph is it you from the times do you have any personal recollections of interactions with um sort of anecdotal and um during the course of the conclave did you have any sense obviously some people thought from early on that this could be the new pope did you have any sense that he himself might have that idea and whether he was troubled by it or seems to have taken it all in his stride but seeing him there in the conclave was there any sort of body language that No I mean he's he is remarkably calm yeah and um he just I think your phrase is exactly right he seemed to take it in his stride and at lunchtime today he turned up in Santa Mato sat down at the table special chair mind uh and waited till somebody bring brought him his lunch and and there was no fuss no fuss um yeah I mean that just seems to be the character he is uh and obviously people were wanting to have a word with them about this or that and he took it all in his stride and didn't seem to change he is changed by the decision that's made but it's still the same man who has dealt I think over many years with difficult issues given his character his values how do you think he might get on with the Trump administration oh I hadn't given Trump a thought not even with regard to Ailla 452 oh you might hear that i didn't say it what about the atmosphere in the Santa Mata and you know what's it like being in there and the sparse food we get all these menus allegedly that are in the Italian media what's it like in there How can I put this i found it very refreshing and I found it more like going on a spiritual retreat than anything else and there was this sense that here was something of a sacred space and within that space it was possible to at a very profound level and so actually by the time we were uh lunch today there was quite a bit of me didn't want to leave because there was something to be deeply treasured in the fraternity and in the prayerfulness of it and just the sense you could I went into each meal and just sat down where there's a chair next to whoever it was i didn't get a sense of people trying to gather in clusters or in pressure groups or any of that and at no point did I feel there was the slightest uh what am I you know somebody trying to promote themselves or even block somebody else unlike the film I think this was a very very lovely and congenial and fraternal time together and I think every cardinal would attest to that even those who didn't disagree particularly with the drift of things his brother's revealed that he did watch the film before he went in do you do you see that pardon so Pope Leo's brother has revealed that um yeah watched the film before he went in because obviously he had excuse me no said are you allowed to say I mean the atmosphere when it's finally announced Oh it was it was elation frankly yeah it really was and especially there is this formal moment at the end when there's a formula and the dean goes stands in front of the candidate and says um you've been elected will you accept and then he very clearly Jimmy said I accept and that brought a round applause relief we didn't have to start again and then the second question these are all in the book these are all public the Second question is what name do you take and he just said Leo did he have any did he No no i was you know this far away just calm clear this is thought about it yes were you surprised that he why not well because he because of the reasons I've given you know there's continuity there's a great missionary experience uh there's administrative competence and there's a familiarity with the Roman curio administrative competence why was that so important how much is is about managing the Vatican finances how much is that factor clearly you know everybody knows that um cur tense at times and There are there are certainly problems and I think what um Colonel Provost brought was um a significant experience of it but not long enough to him to be identified with any particular interest group and just let me say I think it's been a great time it really has a really uh lifegiving time for us all I believe
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