New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan Played 'Kingmaker' for Pope Leo

Yahoo

11-05-2025

A New York Cardinal, Timothy Dolan, was instrumental in the election of Robert Prevost to be Pope Leo XIV.
According to il Giornale, an Italian-language news site, the Chicago-born Prevost was not initially the favorite to be the next Pope. That honor was accorded to an Italian cardinal named Pietro Parolin, the site reported.
What changed? Dolan, the former archbishop of Milwaukee, WI.
According to il Giornale, the outgoing Dolan played "kingmaker." In rallying support for the first American Pope, Dolan gathered support from cardinals affiliated with the "old British empire," especially those cardinals who speak English, the site reported,
Parolin had a group of supporters but not enough to reach a quorum, the site reported, and two other cardinals divided others. Meanwhile, Prevost was gathering support "in the shadows," according to il Giornale.
After the first vote, Prevost began to draw support from African and Asian cardinals, according to the site.
Dolan spoke about the new Pope to CNN's Erin Burnett.
'Exhausting. That's a good sense,' he said of how he was feeling.
'We've been at it pretty full time for the last 2.5 weeks.'
Dolan said that 'a lot of times all we get is bleak, somber news about the church."
He said there's been an 'explosion of hope and promise and unity" around Pope Leo. According to Dolan, people throughout the world viewing the white smoke surpassed the viewership of the World Cup.
'You could feel it,' he said, adding that he received a lot of emails and phone calls from people expressing solidarity.
He said he knew of Prevost but thought he was a 'peripheral' candidate at first.
'I didn't kind of really zero in on him until I showed up at the congregation meetings,' after the funeral of Pope Francis, Dolan revealed. He said that people started asking Dolan about Prevost because he was born in the U.S.
He said he didn't know Prevost but what he knew was 'pretty stellar.'
At that point, he started getting to know Prevost better.
Conclaves have been 'usually two, maybe three days,' he said.
'There must have bene somewhat of a unity or agreement from when they went in,' he said of the cardinals.