Shepherd

You know the saying: enter the conclave a pope; exit a cardinal. Cardinal Robert Prevost of Chicago, now Pope Leo XIV, certainly entered the conclave a cardinal.

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He was not among the "papabile" the media speculated on without any basis.

Media coverage of the papal selection hewed closely to the archetype of the usual coverage of elections: a power struggle between great power blocs. This year, media chatter drew up a fictitious spectrum between "progressives" and "conservatives" — then chose personifications of imagined ideological stereotypes.

In some cases, the selection of the beloved Pope Francis' replacement was understood according to the paradigm of patronage. Media speculation counted the number of cardinals Pope Francis created in his 12-year tenure as head of the Catholic Church and imagined they would vote as a bloc to ensure continuity of their patron's legacy.

But this is not how papal selection happens.

To its credit, the Catholic Church chooses its leader in a different way: doctrinally on the basis of guidance from the Holy Spirit. To humanity's great relief, leaders are chosen very differently from the way Americans (and Filipinos) choose their leaders. Otherwise, we might have seen orange smoke emitting out of that plain chimney atop the Sistine Chapel.

Cardinal Prevost does come with very strong credentials.

He studied, and taught, mathematics — certainly a background that impresses a terribly innumerate person like me. In 1975, he turned down an opportunity to study at Harvard Law School and decided to become a priest in the Augustinian order.