Pope Leo XIV reflects on rapid election, spiritual foundation in first airborne press conference

Somewhere over the Mediterranean, Pope Leo XIV sat down with reporters and, for the first time, described the moment he knew he would be pope. It happened during the conclave in May—a remarkably swift affair that took only four ballots spread across the second day of voting. By the third round, the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel could see the arithmetic was moving in one direction. Robert Prevost, the former cardinal from the United States, was about to become history's first American pontiff.

"I resigned myself to the fact when I saw how things were going," Leo said during the half-hour press conference aboard the papal plane, returning from his inaugural trip to Turkey and Lebanon. "I said 'This could be a reality.'" But resignation, in his telling, was not defeat. It was surrender of a different kind. "I took a deep breath. I said 'Here we go Lord. You're in charge and you lead the way.'" The words came easily, in English, as they would in Spanish and Italian throughout the conference. They also revealed something about how Leo understands his own role—not as a man seized by ambition, but as someone who had spent decades learning to trust that God's hand was steadier than his own.

That spirituality was not new to him. Leo spent two decades as a missionary in Peru, living through years of terrorism and upheaval. He had read deeply in Augustine, the fifth-century theologian whose thought shaped his religious order. But when asked what might illuminate his character, Leo pointed instead to a slim volume by a seventeenth-century Carmelite friar named Brother Lawrence: "The Practice of the Presence of God." The book describes a form of prayer in which a person simply surrenders his life to the Lord and allows divine will to unfold. "If you want to know something about me, that's been my spirituality for many years," Leo said.

The pope who emerged during this airborne conversation was notably more at ease than the one who had seemed tentative with the media in his earliest weeks. He fielded questions about Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon—hinting at behind-the-scenes diplomatic work—and offered a measured critique of American foreign policy toward Venezuela. Rather than military threats, he urged dialogue and economic pressure as tools of statecraft. "The voices coming from the United States change, with a certain frequency at times," he observed. "I believe it's better to look for ways of dialogue."

When a reporter asked about his expression during a massive crowd event in Lebanon, Leo smiled at the assumption that his face was an open book. "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 room laughed. Here was a man who had learned, over decades of service, to observe himself being observed—and to find some humor in the gap between what people saw and what was actually happening inside.

The enthusiasm of young Catholics in Lebanon had moved him deeply. He described it as awe-inspiring, though he was careful about what he believed they were actually responding to. "I think to myself, 'These people are here because they want to see the pope.' But I say to myself, 'They're here because they want to see Jesus Christ and they want to see a messenger of peace.'" It was a distinction that mattered to him—the difference between the office and the message, between the man and what he represented.

Looking ahead, Leo outlined an ambitious travel schedule. He hopes to visit Africa next year, with particular focus on Algeria because of its role in Christian-Muslim dialogue and its connection to Augustine. He also plans to return to Latin America—to Argentina, Uruguay, and Peru—sometime between 2026 and 2027. Peru especially calls to him; he lived there for twenty years and knows its landscape and its people in ways few popes ever know a place. Argentina, meanwhile, has been waiting for a papal homecoming since Pope Francis never returned after his election in 2013.

When a retiring reporter mentioned his plans to step back from work, Leo acknowledged that he too had once imagined a quieter future. "Just a year or two ago, I too thought about retiring some day," he said. "You've received that gift apparently. Some of us will continue to work." There was no bitterness in it, only acceptance—the same acceptance he had described in the conclave, when he took a breath and handed the rest to God.