Robert Prevost A new start for the Catholic Church

After the grief of death, the joy of a new beginning.

The Warm Mei -Zon was still high in the air when a roar echoed in the streets around St. Peter’s Square.

One street past, shocked people looked at each other and then at their phones. Then they started walking the narrow alleys that led to the Vatican. “White smoke, they say white smoke!” They shout.

By the time they reached the square, a white haze was still floating over the left side of the apostolic palace where 133 cardinals had been locked up since the day before, voices to choose the new head of the Catholic Church.

While the evening zones through the images of the apostles on the Richel of St. Peter’s Basilica and Bells were joyfully walking over the square, Zigzig Zigzig through the crowd, and a group of nuns held hands while they waved journalists and cameras.

It was less than three weeks ago that Pope Francis was the crowd of the balcony at St. Peter’s blessed, and his memory hung over the square on Thursday; Almost everyone asked to share their impressions, called Francis and the need for the new pope to follow in his footsteps.

“We just arrived from America today,” a woman named Amanda told the BBC. “It feels like a blessing. We came here for this and here it is.”

“Divine timing!” She joked. Two stylish women in the twenty said they “were about to cry”. “It’s a historic moment, it’s crazy,” someone said, adding that she hoped that the next pope would be “at least as good as the last”.

This was a sentiment that many people echoed in those last minutes before Pope Leo XIV was announced.

“We don’t care where he comes from as long as he follows Francis’ footsteps and creates unity for all of us Catholics,” a French woman said as she hurt her five children to get closer to the front of the square.

By the time Dominique Mamberti – the Proto deacon responsible for supplying the iconic “Habemus Papam” address on the square – appeared on the balcony, St. Peter was full on the edge. However, it fell silent as soon as the name of Robert Francis Prevost was read.

Those who are aware, perhaps the 69-year-old Cardinal born in Chicago, who worked as a missionary in Peru for many years before he became a bishop and a potential pontiff.

But many people on the square looked surprised in the beginning, and the full lack of telephone reporting meant that most people could not seek him on the internet – so the first impression that most Pope Leo XIV came to come down to the way he introduced himself from the graceful balcony.

Visibly moved in the beginning, and dressed in white and red robes and in self -confident – if light accentuated – he read Italian, he read a much longer speech than the comments of his predecessor Francis in 2013.

“I would like this peace to reach all your hearts and families … and people around the world. May peace be with you,” the new pope began when the square silent.

At other times his address was confronted with frequent hot applause, especially when he called “peace” – what he did nine times – and the late Francis.

Part of the speech held in Spanish in which Pope Leo XIV remembered that his time in Peru was cheers from different pockets of South Americans spread throughout the square.

He was also on the need for unity and at the end everyone asked to get together in prayer. When he started reciting Ave Maria, a deep bomb rose when the square followed the example, with some praying in their own languages.

The crowd started to cut out the square slowly shortly after. While people were flowing past them, a young couple kept each other close by, radiant. “I still have goose bumps,” said Carla, from Barcelona.

“The energy is contagious, it’s great – it’s our first time here, and for me it’s 100% surrealistic,” said Juan, who comes from Ecuador and had never been to the Vatican. Asked what his hope for Pope Leo XIV was, he said, “That the Holy Spirit leads him. I hope that means that we can all be united together in the future.”

Gemma, a resident of Rome, said she hadn’t even heard the name Robert Prevost until she came across it this morning on Instagram. “The reaction of the square was not that hot,” her girlfriend Marco added.

“If he had been Italian, everyone would have started.” “But it was a beautiful evening, a great opportunity,” said Gemma. “It was my first conclave. And this new pope is only 69, so who knows when the next will be?”

The square suffered. The restaurants around the Vatican filled with pilgrims, clergymen and tourists. Couples broke the last selfies outside the basilica.

Robert Prevost had a moment of private prayer in the Apostolic Palace – now denied.

Then for the first time he came back into the Sixtine Chapel as Leo XIV, the 267th pope.