The temporary chimney atop the Sistine Chapel released a plume of white smoke on Thursday evening local time, signaling that the 133 cardinals working inside had reached a two-thirds majority to elect a new pope for the Catholic Church.

Excitement rippled through New York City's St. Patrick's Cathedral on Sunday morning, the first since an American was picked to lead the Roman Catholic Church in a selection that surprised and delighted many of his countrymen and women.

I don’t think he is going to go, pull the church hard left,” Prevost also said. “I think he’s going to be down the middle.”

Still, it was an exciting moment for the Americans who were at the Vatican that day. Mariner says he and his wife were in a restaurant in Rome at the time, surrounded by dozens of U.S. citizens. When the new pope was announced, Mariner heard many of the patrons joyfully exclaim, “He’s an American!”

In a move that bridges centuries of tradition with the digital age, Pope Leo XIV is officially keeping the papacy online. According to a press release from the Vatican's Dicastery for Communication, the new pontiff will maintain an active presence on social media through the official papal accounts on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram.

At What Cost The newly-annointed Pope Leo XIV — formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost of Chicago, Illinois — revealed this weekend that his name choice was inspired in part by AI, which he sees as a possible threat to human rights and justice.

The elevation of Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Prevost to pope earlier this month has been a point of pride for Chicagoland parishes, including in the north suburbs of Morton Grove, Park Ridge,

Getting back to our own age, Pope Leo XIV went on to tell the Cardinals that AI is "another industrial revolution" and presumably requires the same kind of Papal redress. Pope Francis first warned us about AI in August 2023 in his World Day of Peace address, and earlier this year returned to the theme in the essay Antiqua et Nova ("old and new").