By Just as Chris Wells and his colleagues at Vatican Radio were starting to feel confident a new pope would not be elected on Thursday, May 8, the signal came from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel.
White smoke.
Their day would continue even though it was just past 6 p.m. in Rome.
Wells, 50, is a Roncalli High School graduate who has been working for Vatican Radio since 2011.
He said once a new leader of the Roman Catholic Church is elected, folks crowd into St. Peter’s Square to hear the words “habemus papam,” Latin for “we have a pope.”
“And then they make the announcement and the square just erupts,” Wells said.
The new pope then steps onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to make his first comments.
Wells said he correctly predicted the new pope would take the name Leo, but was otherwise stunned.
“I was just absolutely shocked. And I expressed that to different people in some different ways. I was completely shocked that it would be an American,” he said.
Wells also felt certain in 2013 that the new pope would not be Franciscan, but was proven wrong when Pope Francis was announced.
‘Cardinals shocked me twice in consecutive elections’
Roncalli High School graduate Chris Wells holds a copy of the Vatican’s daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano with the news of Pope Leo XIV’s election on the front page. Wells works for Vatican Radio. Vatican Media photo by Kielce Gussie.
“So the cardinals shocked me twice in consecutive elections,” Wells said.
While he hoped he would be on the air at the time of the announcement, that didn’t happen. However, Wells said he updated the daily Vatican Radio broadcast with the news. The broadcast is recorded in the afternoon, then generally replayed through the next day unless something important happens, he said.
In the office, Wells said he and his peers celebrated with a toast of Prosecco, an Italian fizzy wine.
The new pope’s first and middle names are announced initially, followed by some fanfare, then the last name. Upon hearing the first name, journalists start looking through the list of candidates searching, in this case, for Robert or Roberto, Wells said. Eventually came Prevost and the realization the new pope was born in the U.S.
Nobody in the Vatican media offices has any advance warning or information, Wells said. Essentially, there’s a shell of a story written with a blank to fill in the name, he said.
The next 24-plus hours are exceptionally busy doing stories about the new pope, but Wells said his colleagues did good work.
Now, about two weeks after the election, things are starting to return to normal, but Leo XIV still has a series of firsts —producing his first document, an initial trip overseas, etc. — that will all be newsworthy, Wells said.
After thinking about it, Wells said it now feels like Prevost is the right fit for the job.
Wells said the early impressions of Leo XIV are that he’s thoughtfully easing into the job instead of making deliberate, abrupt moves and that he’s a good listener. Early on, people have responded positively, Wells said.
What does the pope’s choosing the name Leo mean?
That Prevost chose the name Leo likely reveals what’s important to him, Wells said.
Pope Leo XIII served from June 1878 until his death in July 1903 and is known for his social encyclical and what has come to commonly be called Catholic social teaching. Some of the takeaways from the document include:
- Finding a remedy for the “misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class.”
- Defending the rights of workers and their right to a living wage.
- Calming class conflict.
- The cultural importance of property rights.
- That free market forces “must be tempered by moral considerations.”
- The rejection of socialism.
In other words, Wells said, social justice. He said Leo XIV is apt to care about blue-collar workers and speak to the gap between those working just to cover their bills and multimillionaires.
The process is the same, the experience is different
Pope Leo XIV
The Catholic Church follows the same process every time a new pope is elected, though the experience is always different, Wells said.
First, the cardinals have to travel to the Vatican, so there’s always time built in for that, he said. For the next week or so, the focus is on the pope who just died. There are nine days of Masses dedicated to the pope, but during that time, the attention shifts to the process of electing a new pope, Wells said. Cardinals start to have confidential conversations about possible successors as anticipation starts to build, he said.
Cardinals often discuss whether they want to build on the legacy for the past pope or reject it, Wells said.
Then conclave — the process electing of a new pope — begins as cardinals take their oaths in Latin before the doors are closed and they begin deliberations and voting.
Once conclave has begun, it’s a hurry up and wait process for Wells and the other journalists who work for the Vatican. There are people who work on a daily newspaper, TV, the website and social media.
It’s hard to believe that nowadays a camera focused on the top of the Sistine Chapel can draw so much attention, he said.
“We were doing a live feed of this chimney and nothing’s happening,” Wells said.
During the process, he said, friends and family members are often messaging and calling him to ask what he thinks might happen. That includes his mother, Elsie, who lives in Aberdeen.
This time, many people felt like they had a better idea of how the process works because they watched “Conclave,” Wells said, adding that he hasn’t seen the popular movie.
The cardinals vote twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon every day of conclave. When there’s black smoke indicating there is no pope in the morning votes, people disperse to find a restaurant that’s not overrun with patrons, he said. There’s no voting overnight, so if there’s black smoke in the afternoon, things start to settle down.
Everybody ‘just heads to St. Peter’s’ after sight of white smoke
But when there’s white smoke…
“The whole city just kind of grinds to a halt because everybody stops what they’re doing and just heads to St. Peter’s,” Wells said.
That’s a slight overstatement, but not by much, he said.
There are about 40 minutes between when the white smoke appears and the new pope is introduced, he said.
Wells has now worked for the Vatican under three popes. He shook hands and briefly greeted Pope Benedict XVI, and he met Pope Francis many times. Wells said he was fairly regularly on a platform at St. Peter’s Basilica when Francis was speaking, translating the pope’s message into English.
That’s a duty Wells hopes to retain under Leo XIV.
Wells said he once interviewed Prevost when he was a cardinal.
Among the benefits of working for the Vatican are that Wells gets to see visitors from South Dakota, including priests from the Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls and Roncalli teachers and students. Often, they reach out to arrange dinner or do some visiting, he said.
It’s always fun to catch up with folks he’s known for years, Wells said.
“Some of the teachers are people who I went to (Roncalli) with,” he said.