O’Connell is the Vatican correspondent for the Jesuit magazine America, while his wife, Elisabetta Piqué, is the Vatican correspondent for Argentina’s La Nación. Part of what had made O’Connell’s book so intimate, and makes their new book so poignant, was their personal friendship with Argentina’s Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, who would become Pope Francis.They were among the few Vatican watchers confident that their friend would become the new pope.
Now they have collaborated in writing a new book, The Election of Pope Leo XIV: The Last Surprise of Pope Francis. As with O’Connell’s previous book, they follow a diary format, tracing the story from the death and funeral of their friend Pope Francis, the gathering of cardinals, the intrigue of outsiders (especially from the Unit-ed States) hoping to influence the narrative, the conclave itself, and its surprising conclusion in the election of Cardinal Robert Prevost, the first U.S.-born pope.
This conclave, unlike the previous one, cannot be said (yet) to have changed history. What it did show was a quickly solidified consensus among the College of Cardinals to continue the synodal path of Pope Francis. For those (especially conservative American partisans) who had imagined that the conclave would endorse their desired “course correction,” this came as a surprise.
The more widespread surprise was shared by those who assumed that an American-born cardinal could never be considered. Evidently, CardinalRobert Prevost, with his time as a Peruvian bishop, passed that bar.
But as O’Connell and Piqué came to understand, Prevost was actually Pope Francis’s preferred successor, in that sense his “last surprise.” He evidently saw in Prevost, with his formation in religious life, his experience as a missionary in Latin America, and his global experience, a shepherd cut from similar cloth. Pope Francis advanced his responsibilities and put him in a critical office in Rome that would give him an overview of the world Church, while also raising his profile among the cardinals who would choose the next pope.
None of this was clear in the days and weeks following Pope Francis’ death and funeral (movingly recount-ed by Piqué). Day by day, the two journalists allow us to follow in their footsteps, interviewing many papal electors, taking their measure of the Church’s needs, and eventually providing inside details of what went on behind the locked doors of the conclave. Many surprises occur, some worthy of fiction — such as the discovery of a cardinal’s inadvertent mistake in bringing a forbidden cellphone into the Sistine Chapel.
In other cases, their reporting at the time may even have affected the outcome, such as when they published a story indicating that a widely favored candidate had not actually had the blessing of Pope Francis. Father Martin again provides his enthusiastic endorsement for an “unputdownable” book that “reads like a thriller.” The traditions and protocols by which the Catholic Church chooses a new leader are mysterious and fascinating. But more important is what this election signifies for the future of the world’s largest religious organization, and its implications for the wider world.
Featured image: Cover of The Election of Pope Leo XIV: The Last Surprise of Pope Francis by Gerard O’Connell and Elisabetta Piqué.
