Pope Leo XIV reflects on swift conclave election, spiritual surrender

Pope Leo XIV sat down with reporters aboard the papal plane on a Tuesday afternoon, heading home from his first official trip as pontiff. The newly elected leader of the Catholic Church had just returned from Turkey and Lebanon, and for the first time, he was willing to talk openly about what had crossed his mind during the conclave that had chosen him just months earlier.

When the votes began tilting in his direction during those May ballots, Leo said, he had made a deliberate choice. He stopped resisting the momentum. "I took a deep breath," he told the assembled journalists, speaking with the ease of someone who had grown noticeably more comfortable in front of cameras since his election. "I said 'Here we go Lord. You're in charge and you lead the way.'" The conclave itself had moved with unusual speed—just four ballots across two days before the former Cardinal Robert Prevost became the first American pope in history. By the third ballot, it was already clear which way the wind was blowing.

What emerged during the half-hour airborne press conference was a portrait of a man whose faith operates on a particular frequency. Leo spoke fluently in English, Spanish, and Italian, moving between topics with the confidence of someone who had spent years thinking about the world's problems. But when asked what shaped his approach to life's uncertainties, he pointed not to his own intellect or ambition, but to a 17th-century Carmelite friar named Brother Lawrence and a book called "The Practice of the Presence of God." The book describes a spirituality of radical surrender—the idea of simply handing your life over to God and trusting Him to lead. "That's been my spirituality for many years," Leo said. He had lived it out in Peru during decades of terrorism, in postings he never expected, in a life that had taken turns he could not have predicted.

When a reporter asked about his facial expressions during events in Lebanon—the cameras had caught what looked like surprise at the size of crowds—Leo laughed it off. "My face is very expressive but I'm oftentimes amused by how the journalists interpret my face," he said. "Sometimes I get really great ideas from all of you because you think you can read my mind or my face. You're not always correct." The comment drew laughter and revealed something about how he had settled into the role: he was paying attention to how he was being covered, he had perspective on it, and he was not taking himself too seriously.

But beneath the ease and humor lay something more serious. In Lebanon, Leo had witnessed the enthusiasm of young Catholics gathering to see him, and it had moved him. He understood that they were not really there for him as a person. "They're here because they want to see Jesus Christ and they want to see a messenger of peace," he said. That recognition—that he was a vessel, not the destination—seemed to anchor him.

On the world's pressing problems, Leo advocated for restraint and dialogue. On Venezuela, he urged the United States to pursue economic pressure and negotiation rather than military threats. On his future travels, he outlined an ambitious map: Africa next year, with special attention to Algeria because of its role in Christian-Muslim relations and its connection to St. Augustine, the fifth-century theologian who had inspired his religious order. He also wanted to visit Argentina, Uruguay, and Peru—his home for two decades as a missionary—sometime in 2026 or 2027. Argentina had been waiting for a papal visit since Pope Francis's election in 2013, and Leo seemed aware of that debt.

What struck observers was how much the man had changed since his early days as pope, when he had seemed tentative with the press. Now he was direct, reflective, and willing to let reporters see not just the office but the person holding it. He had learned to live with the role by surrendering to it—the same spiritual practice that had guided him through the conclave itself.