A year with Leo XIV

A few weeks ago we celebrated the first anniversary of the Pope's election. It seems like an eternity separates that moment when he appeared before the world from the balcony of St. Peter's Square and today, when his voice, his face and his magisterium are part of the daily life of the Church and the world.

In the last few days I have relived the emotion of that May afternoon when Leo XIV was elected. After weeks of irrelevant discussions in the press about the papabili and comments, a little more interesting, on the situation of the Church and the issues that the new pontiff would have to face, in those days the attention was focused on «guessing» how long the conclave would last. The majority opinion was that it would be brief, as had been the case on recent occasions.

Anticipating that the 8th might be the day when the new successor of Peter would be announced to the world, I decided to spend the day at my university library working. In my backpack, in addition to my computer and books, I carried something to eat in case the election of the Pope was indeed announced and I did not make it home in time for dinner. And so it happened: the white smoke was announced and there was a stampede in the library, from which we left at full speed to reach St. Peter's Square in the barely ten minutes that separate it if you walk at a good pace.

It is difficult to describe those moments, in which all of Rome converged towards the heart of the Church. A tourist passing by asked aloud about the reason for those races, and someone on the fly answered that there were fumata bianca, knowing that it explained everything.

Halfway down Via della Conciliazione, the police stopped the crowd. They had closed the entrances to avoid excessive crowds. I was reluctant to believe that in less than fifteen minutes after the fumata it would not be possible to enter, so I dashed down a side street and managed to reach the columns surrounding the square. The Gendarmerie had closed the access, but at least I could see the balcony where the Pope would be leaving from where I was, squeezed by hundreds of people in an excellent mood.

There I met Jaime and James, two priest friends who had also come running from home. After about half an hour someone gave the order to open the entrances and we were able to fill the square with those of us who were crowded at the gates.

The following moments were the ones that everyone was able to follow on television and on video. There are some details that, however, no camera can capture. The first of these is the natural closeness that occurred among those of us in the square. Everyone was talking to those around them as if they had known each other all their lives. I was able to meet several people who, I was told, were not very practicing, but being Romans they could not miss that moment. Many had left work early, and others were tourists who were fortunate enough to be in the vicinity at the right time. A true Christian fraternity.

Another curiosity is that the police installed signal jammers to prevent attacks, which prevented us from connecting to the internet or calling other people we knew might be in the square. This was especially relevant because the area I was in did not have a very good public address system, and neither the name of the elected cardinal nor the one he would take as successor to Peter could be heard clearly. It took a few minutes for word to reach us that the new Pope was Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Prevost.

Once the excitement was over, I managed to find some friends who were also there and we had dinner in a nearby square, celebrating the election of the Pope and telling each one how they had experienced the moment. Without a doubt, one of the best anecdotes was that of Pedro, who had been able to use his knowledge of Latin to help some girls correct a poster they had written on: habemus Papa. As he explained to them, and as they arranged on the fly, the joy was rather habemus Papam.

Barely a year has passed and he has already closed a Jubilee, held a consistory of cardinals, visited a good number of countries and, above all, won the hearts of all Christians.