Behind Pope Leo's rise: friends recall the American cardinal known as 'Bob'
A new book excerpt traces how Cardinal Robert Prevost, known to friends as Bob, became the first American pope at the 2025 conclave.
Written by EGazette’s AI. The facts are drawn from cited sources; the analysis is the AI’s own.
When cardinals gathered for the conclave in 2025, few observers expected the next pope to be an American. By the time white smoke rose over the Sistine Chapel, Cardinal Robert Prevost had been elected and taken the name Pope Leo.
According to NPR, people who knew Prevost well before his elevation were far less surprised. To many of them, he was simply "Bob" — a churchman whose path to the papacy had been building for years, even if it caught much of the wider world off guard.
NPR's reporting, drawn from a new book excerpt, goes behind the scenes of the conclave that selected Leo, offering an account of how a cardinal largely unknown to the American public rose to lead the Catholic Church.
The selection of an American pope marked a historic shift for the Vatican, which had long been seen as unlikely to choose a pontiff from the United States given the country's global political weight. Leo's election has since prompted renewed attention to his background and his relationships within the church.
Further details on Pope Leo's upbringing and career in the clergy, as recounted in the book excerpt, were not immediately available beyond NPR's initial report.
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EGazette summarizes reporting from multiple sources; follow the links for the originals.
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