Inside the Conclave: How a quiet coalition delivered the church Pope Leo XIV

The Age

10-05-2025

But Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York was all smiles after the announcement, again playing the role of kingmaker.
Dolan, who had backed Jorge Mario Bergoglio in 2013, played a similar role this time, but with greater intent. According to those in the know, in the days leading up to the conclave, the American – who is generally seen as orthodox and conservative – moved behind the scenes to unify a fractured US bloc.
He brought together progressive cardinals such as Robert McElroy and Wilton Gregory with conservatives including Daniel DiNardo. The negotiations were quiet, conducted largely at the Pontifical North American College. The goal was to build consensus around one figure: Prevost.
A reception hosted the week before the conclave brought together English-speaking cardinals from the United States, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Tonga, and South Africa. There, Prevost's name began to circulate more seriously. This conclave had an Anglophone accent; one observer remarked that more cardinals were saying 'good morning' than 'buongiorno'.
To those watching closely, Prevost ticked every quiet box. Born in the US, shaped by decades of missionary work in Peru, and fluent in English, Spanish and Italian, Prevost offered doctrinal orthodoxy paired with pastoral sensitivity. To outsiders, he had no obvious campaign, no crude media push. But he was known – and trusted.
Inside the conclave the conservative African bloc never coalesced, weakened by the influence of Francis-era appointments. The Asian votes fractured between Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle and Bishop Pablo Virgilio David. Tagle's hopes of a high curial role, possibly in partnership with Parolin, faded. Criticism over his administration of Caritas International may have left him looking vulnerable in the eyes of undecided electors.
By Thursday's lunch break – a historically decisive moment in papal elections – the tide had turned. Prevost's appeal, moderate and measured, began to solidify. Support trickled in from across the Americas, parts of Europe, and inside the Roman Curia. He was seen not as a compromise, but as a credible centre.
'He was the ideal profile,' one Vatican watcher says. 'Not too loud, not too political – someone who could lead without dividing.'
Prevost's reputation as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops played a key role. The position – sometimes described as the Vatican's most influential post after the pope – requires discretion, diplomacy and a deep sense of the church's global texture. His leadership there had been widely respected.
Father Tony Banks, the most senior Australian in Rome from Prevost's Augustinian order, wasn't surprised. He met Prevost in 1981 while at university – both skipped a dull lecture for a game of tennis. 'He's a quiet man. He listens,' Banks says.
Before the conclave, he messaged his old friend: 'I think you'd make a wonderful pope, but I hope for your sake it doesn't happen.' Prevost's response: 'There's no chance. I'm American.'
Banks believes Prevost's formation in Latin America – paired with his administrative experience in Rome – helped bridge divides. 'He's not radical,' Banks says. 'He's moderate. He believes the new world isn't a threat to tradition, but a place for the gospel to flourish.'
Not all cardinals found the process smooth. British Cardinal Vincent Nichols, of Westminster, described the early voting rounds as 'irritating', as the procession of 133 electors filing to vote tested his patience.
'Each cardinal, in a queue, goes up to the high altar at the foot of The Last Judgmen t and puts his vote in. If you do that 133 times, it takes quite a while.'
'So I learnt a bit of patience. And that patience can be creative as well as initially irritating.'
Even the black smoke after the first round was delayed, he revealed, by an unexpectedly long speech from a 91-year-old cardinal.'It was splendid stuff,' Nichols told the UK's Telegraph. 'But it had been suggested that it would be half an hour at most.'
Dolan, speaking to reporters the following day, looked drained but content. 'I'm not complaining,' he said. 'It was exhausting – but one of the most moving experiences of my life.' He described meeting a senior Italian cardinal on the way out of the chapel: 'He just rubbed his hands together and said, 'Now it is done.' And I thought – yes. That's exactly right.'
Ukrainian cardinal Mykola Bychok, based in Melbourne, called the conclave 'unforgettable' and spoke of the solemnity behind the locked chapel doors. 'It wasn't just about choosing a pope,' he said. 'It was about the future of the church.' Of the inner workings, he remained discreet: 'This is secret. Not just for a year, for life.' As for the surprise result, he said: 'Many predictions fell apart. The Holy Spirit works mysteriously.'
There had been a focus in US conservative Catholic titles such as Catholic Herald, The Pillar, and Crux ahead of the vote on Prevost's administrative past. A dossier against Prevost – released by some ultraconservative digital outlets – accused him of an alleged cover-up of several sexual abuse cases committed by a Peruvian priest in 2004. The Vatican maintains the newly elected pope's conduct was impeccable.
But in secular and progressive Catholic outlets, including The New York Times and The National Catholic Reporter, Prevost's multilingualism, diplomatic finesse, and consensus-building credentials have been painted as a virtue.
He performed well in the pre-conclave general congregations, drawing interest from not just American and Latin American cardinals, but also Asian and Roman Curia figures who had grown wary of the more divisive candidates.
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At 133 members, it was the largest conclave in the Church's history. And in that gathering, Prevost's name – and steady reputation – rose quietly but firmly.
By Thursday afternoon, Parolin's support was ebbing. Italian unity never materialised. Prevost emerged not as a fallback, but as a figure of consensus.
'It wasn't that he got up and made this overwhelmingly convincing speech that just wowed the body,' Cardinal Wilton Gregory told a media conference. 'But I do believe he engaged quite effectively in the smaller group conversations.'
La Repubblica called him 'the least American of Americans', more shaped by Peru than by Washington. His moderate tone and global experience echoed aspects of Francis, without mimicking his style.
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Asked whether the new pope might serve as a counterweight to current US politics, Dolan demurred: 'He's a bridge-builder, that's what the word pontiff means.'
Prevost's choice of papal name – Leo XIV – was deliberate. It invoked Leo XIII, a 19th-century pope best known for Rerum Novarum, a groundbreaking document that defended workers' rights and laid the foundation for the church's modern social teaching, and Leo the Great, who once turned back Attila the Hun. It signalled strength, intellect, and unity – but not belligerence.
He had reflected recently on his Spanish mother, Italian-French father, and the quiet lessons of faith in his childhood home. He spoke of love and mercy without drawing hard doctrinal lines.
'He's a citizen of the world. He reminds us that we all have our true citizenship in heaven. As St Paul taught us, and that is his role as universal pastor, where he comes from is, sort of, now a thing of the past, ' Dolan said.
The conclave concluded after just four ballots and just over 24 hours, a testament to how quickly the College of Cardinals coalesced once the early favourites stumbled.
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And as Leo XIV stepped into the light, Dolan stood near him, the strategist behind the smoke in a conclave where power moved not through noise, but through quiet consensus.
It was not the campaigners or the presumptive heirs who prevailed, but the quiet cardinal who listened more than he spoke, and who, behind closed doors, found himself at the centre of history.