As Born In The USA plays, American cardinals in Rome celebrate Pope Leo XIV
Speakers blasted songs including Born In The USA and American Pie as six cardinal electors from the United States gathered in Rome to share their thoughts on the election of the first US-born pope, Cardinal Robert Prevost.
'I took a look at Bob and he had his head in his hands and I was praying for him,' said Cardinal Joseph Tobin of the moment right after casting his vote in the Sistine Chapel.
Advertisement
'And then when he accepted, it was like it was made for him.'
From left, US cardinals Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the USA, Robert McElroy of Washington, Wilton Gregory, archbishop emeritus of Washington, Blase Cupich of Chicago, Joseph Tobin of Newark, Timothy Dolan of NY, and Daniel Di Nardo, archbishop emeritus of Galveston Houston, attend a press conference at the North American College in Rome one day after US Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was elected Pope Leo XIV (Gregorio Borgia/AP)
One day after Chicago-born Cardinal Prevost became Pope Leo XIV, the cardinals met on a stage decorated with the Stars and Stripes and a Vatican flag at the Pontifical North American College.
The hilltop institution for US seminarians is a short walk from St Peter's Basilica, where Leo made his first speech to the world on Thursday evening as the new leader of the Catholic Church's 1.4 billion global faithful.
The United States had 10 voting cardinals in the conclave, the second-highest number of any country.
Advertisement
Four of them currently serve as archbishops in the US: Cardinal Tobin of Newark, New Jersey; Timothy Dolan of New York; Blase Cupich of Chicago; and Robert McElroy of Washington.
'In a very real sense, Cardinal Prevost has been in his life at his core a real missionary, in every way,' Cardinal McElroy said.
Joining them were retired archbishops Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston in Texas, and Wilton Gregory of Washington, as well as French Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States.
The official document attesting the acceptance by Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, of his election (Vatican Media via AP)
Several of the men referred to the man they have known for years as Bob or Robert by his papal name, Leo.
Advertisement
Others said that his American nationality was not a factor – he also holds Peruvian citizenship.
Cardinals were most concerned with 'who among us can bring us together, who among us can strengthen the faith and bring the faith to places where it has grown weak', said Cardinal Gregory.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
22 minutes ago
- BBC News
LA protests: British photographer hit by non-lethal bullet
A British news photographer has undergone emergency surgery after being hit by a non-lethal bullet while documenting the stand-off between police and protesters in the US city of Los Stern was covering protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) protests when he said a 14mm "sponge bullet" tore into his thigh."Some of the protesters came and helped me, and they ended up carrying me, and I noticed that there was blood pouring down my leg," he against immigration raids have been raging in LA for three days, with protests on Sunday erupting outside a Home Depot store in Paramount, south of LA. Stern, who relocated to the US in 2007, told PA he was treated by a medic who urged him to go to hospital, adding that at one point he passed out from the is now recovering at Long Beach Memorial Medical Centre following emergency said he typically makes himself "as visible as possible" while working in hostile situations."That way you're less likely to get hit because they know you're media," he his injury, Stern said he was eager to return to work. "I intend, as soon as I am well enough, to get back out there," he said."This is too important and it needs documenting."An Australian journalist, Lauren Tomasi, was also struck by a rubber bullet, shot by a police officer, while filming a piece to camera in LA for 9 News, with the incident captured on video. Since his return to the White House, US President Donald Trump has promised mass deportations of undocumented made by Ice officers have increased during Trump's second said he had deployed 2,000 National Guard troops to California to deal with the unrest over the immigration raids, saying the federal government would "step in and solve the problem".But the Democratic governor of California has appealed to Trump to pull National Guard units out of the city, accusing the White House of inflaming tensions. Stern said: "The communities in LA are very tight and very close-knit."So an outside organisation like Ice coming in and removing - whatever you want to call it, removing, kidnapping, abducting people from the community - is not going to go down well at all."Stern said he had also sustained injuries after being hit by live non-lethal rounds while covering protests in LA in 2020 in the aftermath of George Floyd's Floyd - an unarmed Black man - was killed during an arrest by white police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020. Chauvin was sentenced to 22 years in jail for his murder.
Sky News
36 minutes ago
- Sky News
Trade war: US-China talks in London aim for widespread truce
Top US and Chinese officials are meeting in London on Monday in the hope of making further progress in easing the trade war between the world's two largest economies. The eyes of global financial market investors are firmly on the outcome of the discussions, given the damage already inflicted by the spat and wider US -led trade war. The US delegation is led by Treasury secretary Scott Bessent while China 's vice premier He Lifeng - a respected negotiator at the top of the Chinese government - will represent his country. The venue has not been disclosed. It is hoped the talks will build on the preliminary agreement struck in Geneva that removed the effective trade embargo between the two nations. That deal amounted to a 90-day reduction in effective tariff rates above 100% to allow for further talks. A phone conversation between Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping last week set the scene for Monday's negotiations. Mr Trump later said that Xi had agreed to resume shipments to the US of rare earths minerals and magnets. They had been suspended by Beijing in response to Mr Trump's tariffs and were seen as an effective tool in getting the US to talk due to the havoc it inflicted on supply chains central to many US manufacturers - the very sector the US president is trying to bolster through his "America first" agenda. It emerged on Monday morning that Boeing had resumed shipments of planes to Chinese customers. 2:02 Mr Trump has described the status of the negotiations as "very far advanced" but China, in its own remarks, has been more critical of the US position. A Chinese government readout of the Trump-Xi conversation said the Chinese premier had told his US counterpart to back down from inflicting further hurt to the global economy. The trade war to date has damaged growth widely, with official US figures showing a sharp slowdown in the first quarter of the year - before the worst of the tariff regime had even been announced. Data out of China on Monday showed deflationary pressures had deepened as factory gate prices - an important signal on future price growth - slid further into negative territory during May as demand for goods continued to drag. Customs data had already showed that China's exports to the US - its biggest single market - slumped by 34.5% year-on-year during May in value terms. That was up from a 21% drop the previous month. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Fox News: "We want China and the United States to continue moving forward with the agreement that was struck in Geneva. "The administration has been monitoring China's compliance with the deal, and we hope that this will move forward to have more comprehensive trade talks." A UK government spokesperson said of hosting the negotiations: "We are a nation that champions free trade and have always been clear that a trade war is in nobody's interests, so we welcome these talks."
BreakingNews.ie
40 minutes ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Protests intensify in Los Angeles after Trump deploys National Guard troops
Tensions in Los Angeles escalated on Sunday as thousands of protesters took to the streets in response to US President Donald Trump's deployment of the National Guard. They blocked off a major road and set self-driving cars on fire as law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs to control the crowd. Advertisement Many protesters dispersed as evening fell and police declared an unlawful assembly, a precursor to officers moving in and making arrests of people who do not leave. Some of those remaining threw objects at police from behind a makeshift barrier that spanned the width of a street and others hurled chunks of concrete, rocks, electric scooters and fireworks at California Highway Patrol officers and their vehicles parked on the closed southbound 101 freeway. Officers ran under an overpass to take cover. People take cover as a firework explodes during a protest near the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Los Angeles (Ethan Swope/AP) Sunday's protests in Los Angeles, a sprawling city of four million people, were centred in downtown several blocks. It was the third and most intense day of demonstrations against Mr Trump's immigration crackdown in the region, as the arrival of around 300 Guard troops spurred anger and fear among many residents. Advertisement The Guard was deployed specifically to protect federal buildings, including the detention centre where protesters concentrated. Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said officers were 'overwhelmed' by the remaining protesters. He said they included regular agitators who appear at demonstrations to cause trouble. Several dozen people were arrested throughout the weekend of protest. One was detained on Sunday for throwing a Molotov cocktail at police, and another for ramming a motorcycle into a line of officers. Let's get this straight: 1) Local law enforcement didn't need help. 2) Trump sent troops anyway — to manufacture chaos and violence. 3) Trump succeeded. 4) Now things are destabilized and we need to send in more law enforcement just to clean up Trump's mess. — Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 9, 2025 Mr Trump responded to Mr McDonnell on Truth Social, telling him to arrest protesters in face masks. Advertisement 'Looking really bad in L.A. BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!' he wrote. Starting in the morning, the troops stood shoulder to shoulder, carrying long guns and riot shields as protesters shouted 'shame' and 'go home'. After some closely approached the guard members, another set of uniformed officers advanced on the group, shooting smoke-filled canisters into the street. Minutes later, the Los Angeles Police Department fired rounds of crowd-control munitions to disperse the protesters, who they said were assembled unlawfully. Advertisement Much of the group then moved to block traffic on the 101 freeway until state patrol officers cleared them from the roadway by late afternoon. Nearby, at least four self-driving Waymo cars were set on fire, sending large plumes of black smoke into the sky and exploding intermittently as the electric vehicles burned. By evening, police had issued an unlawful assembly order shutting down several blocks of downtown Los Angeles. A protester stands on a burning Waymo taxi in Los Angeles (Eric Thayer/AP) Flash bangs echoed out every few seconds into the evening. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom requested that Mr Trump remove the guard members in a letter on Sunday afternoon, calling their deployment a 'serious breach of state sovereignty'. He was in Los Angeles meeting local law enforcement and officials. Advertisement The deployment appeared to be the first time in decades that a state's national guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration's mass deportation efforts. Mr Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass blamed the increasingly aggressive protests on Mr Trump's decision to deploy the Guard, calling it a move designed to inflame tensions. They have both urged protesters to remain peaceful. 'What we're seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration,' she said in an afternoon press conference. 'This is about another agenda, this isn't about public safety.' But Mr McDonnell, the LAPD chief, said the protests were following a similar pattern for episodes of civil unrest, with things ramping up in the second and third days. He pushed back against claims by the Trump administration that the LAPD had failed to help federal authorities when protests broke out on Friday after a series of immigration raids. A California Highway Patrol officer pulls an electric scooter off a vehicle as protesters throw objects at the police vehicles near the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Los Angeles (Ethan Swope/AP) His department responded as quickly as it could, and had not been notified in advance of the raids and therefore was not pre-positioned for protests, he said. Mr Newsom, meanwhile, has repeatedly said that California authorities had the situation under control. He mocked Mr Trump for posting a congratulatory message to the Guard on social media before troops had even arrived in Los Angeles, and said on MSNBC that Mr Trump never floated deploying the Guard during a Friday phone call. He called Mr Trump a 'stone cold liar'. The admonishments did not deter the administration. 'It's a bald-faced lie for Newsom to claim there was no problem in Los Angeles before President Trump got involved,' White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement. The arrival of the National Guard followed two days of protests that began Friday in Los Angeles before spreading on Saturday to Paramount, a heavily Latino city south of the city, and neighbouring Compton. Federal agents arrested immigrants in LA's fashion district, in a Home Depot parking lot and at several other locations on Friday. The next day, they were staging at a Department of Homeland Security office near another Home Depot in Paramount, which drew out protesters who suspected another raid. Federal authorities later said there was no enforcement activity at that Home Depot. The weeklong tally of immigrant arrests in the LA area climbed above 100, federal authorities said. Many more were arrested while protesting, including a prominent union leader who was accused of impeding law enforcement. The protests did not reach the size of past demonstrations that brought the National Guard to Los Angeles, including the Watts and Rodney King riots, and the 2020 protests against police violence, in which Mr Newsom requested the assistance of federal troops. The last time the National Guard was activated without a governor's permission was in 1965, when President Lyndon B Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Centre for Justice. In a directive on Saturday, Mr Trump invoked a legal provision allowing him to deploy federal service members when there is 'a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States'. He said he had authorised the deployment of 2,000 members of the National Guard. Mr Trump told reporters as he prepared to board Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, Sunday that there were 'violent people' in Los Angeles 'and they're not going to get away with it'. Asked if he planned to send US troops to Los Angeles, Mr Trump replied: 'We're going to have troops everywhere. We're not going to let this happen to our country.' He did not elaborate. About 500 marines stationed at Twentynine Palms, about 125 miles (200 kilometres) east of Los Angeles were in a 'prepared to deploy status' on Sunday afternoon, according to the US Northern Command.
