‘MY MOTHER WAS A CUBS FAN, SO … WE LEARNED, EVEN IN SPORTS, TO HAVE AN OPEN, DIALOGICAL, FRIENDLY AND NOT ANGRY COMPETITIVE STANCE’—POPE LEO XIV, TO CRUX, SEPTEMBER 2025 On the afternoon of May 8, following a two-day conclave, the white smoke rose from a chimney on the Sistine Chapel, signaling a new Pope had been elected. Burning ballots is an old tradition, but this time something new: The 267th pontiff was the first American. After taking the name Leo XIV, Robert Francis Prevost stood on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica and spoke: “Help us, too, and help each other to build bridges, with dialogue, with meetings, uniting us all to be one people, always in peace,” he said in his first public comments before paying tribute to…