I had just gotten off the phone with a friend, encouraging him to watch Conclave, when I checked email and there was a news update:

News Alert: White smoke signals a new pope elected   White smoke has risen above the Sistine Chapel, the signal that cardinals have chosen a new pope on the second day of the conclave. His identity, and the name he will take as pontiff, will be revealed soon.

I turned on the TV and for the first time in my life saw the first appearance of a newly elected pope: Cardinal Robert Prevost, born in Chicago, the first American pope in history.

I immediately went to one of the articles I had saved of who the ten most likely cardinals to be selected were, and he is on that list at #6, a “dark horse.” ABC had Father James Martin, SJ, a well-published author, some of whose books we have read. Father Martin said over and over things like:

…humble, soft-spoken, but firm, forthright, kind

Not bad characteristics for a spiritual leader!

I like that he is a math major, same as I am!

Robert Prevost was born in Chicago in on September 14, 1955. He completed his secondary studies at the minor seminary of the Order of St. Augustine in 1973. Prevost earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics at Villanova University in 1977. – Wikipedia

He served as a missionary in Peru.

A Roman Catholic friend of mine wrote:

Jesus is the head of the Catholic Church, not the pope. He’s the vicar, but I put my trust in Jesus first.

Amen. May he serve well.

And [Jesus] is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. (Colossians 1.17, 18, ESV)