Fr. James M. Weiss, a Boston College associate professor of theology, said he was excited a pope was chosen so soon after the conclave began.
“I’m just overcome with joy, to be honest, because I expected this to be a more divided conclave, for many reasons that I could explain,” Weiss said. “This tells me that they became fairly clear fairly quickly before the conclave what they wanted and whom they saw as eligible.”
“This conclave is absolutely on track with three of the last four, that were all over on the first afternoon of the first full day,” he continued. “And it was clearly on the third ballot of the day. There were two ballots this morning, produced black smoke. The timing of this tells us that when they came back from lunch, they had made up their minds.”
Weiss said that Pope Francis worked to change the Catholic Church into a “listening church,” and although not all Catholics are on the same page, the cardinals were able to come together and listen to each other to make a decision.
Weiss also explained the rituals expected once the new pope’s name is announced.
“It is now a tradition for the new pope to say something to the crowd before proceeding to pray and give the blessing,” he said. “Francis came out and the first thing he said was, ‘Would you please pray for me?’ It was a very solemn moment and silence fell over the crowd. It was very moving. And then he proceeded to speak about being called from the other end of the world. And he offered words of welcome and greeting, and then he proceeded to give the blessing.”
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