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NorthJersey.com
Shock and excitement reverberated around New Jersey and the country Thursday afternoon with the news that the cardinals had chosen an American to lead the Roman Catholic Church.
Pope Leo XIV, the former Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, was elected by the college of cardinals on Thursday in Vatican City. A native of Chicago whose ministry took him to Peru and then to the Vatican, Prevost is a 1977 graduate of Villanova University.
Fran Yates was among the numerous Catholics around New Jersey whose attention was on her screen as she watched the new pope emerge.
"My relatives and I were all texting back and forth," said Yates of Westwood. "We were all rooting for different people."
When Prevost came out on the balcony, Yates was overjoyed. Prevost, she knew, was born in Chicago, although he spent much of his career overseas. But his name wasn't on any short list.
"We never expected an American — we assumed that was out of the picture," she said, adding that everyone she knows is thrilled with the choice. "He will be able to relate to American society and bring more Americans back to the church."
He has experience as a bishop in Peru who held several important Vatican roles, Yates said.
"He also speaks several languages and was able to speak in both Italian and Spanish to the crowds with a lot of confidence," she said.
Dugan McGinley, a professor of religion at Rutgers University said it's significant that the new pope chose the name Leo, because the last pontiff to take that name, Leo XIII, who was pope from 1878 to 1903, is considered one of the main figures in the modern Catholic social justice movement.
"His encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) is sort of the founding document in that regard. It is concerned with the rights of workers and asserts the right to private property while it also condemns laissez-faire capitalism," he said. "Clearly, this new pope wants to be associated with that legacy of social justice."
Msgr. Richard Arnhols, the former leader of St. John the Evangelist Church in Bergenfield, added, "I sense that he has some of the spirit of Pope Francis and a strong concern for the poor and marginalized, while, as a Canon Lawyer, might bring a bit more clarity and stability to how to live our faith in the light of Church teaching and discipline.
"Led by the Holy Spirit, we believe that the Cardinals chose just the right person to lead the Church at this point in history."
The fact that the new pope is an American is historic, of course, but more importantly, is the kind of man he appears to be, mused Father Daniel O'Mullane, the pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Booton.
"He's a missionary, a servant of the Church across cultures and continents," O'Mullane said. "His formation in the Augustinian tradition, his years in Peru, and his recent work as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops all point to a pope who understands the breadth of the Church and the weight of shepherding her well."
He was struck, he said, "by the humility and warmth of his first words to the world" as pope, which were “Peace be with you all.”
Those words, he said, represent a very "fitting beginning for a papacy rooted in hope."