{"id":125237,"date":"2026-05-07T23:36:52","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T23:36:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/us-bishops-detail-the-year-since-the-election-of-pope-leo-xiv\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T23:39:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T23:39:47","slug":"us-bishops-detail-the-year-since-the-election-of-pope-leo-xiv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/us-bishops-detail-the-year-since-the-election-of-pope-leo-xiv\/","title":{"rendered":"US bishops detail the year since the election of Pope Leo XIV"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

American bishops marked the first anniversary of the election of Pope Leo XIV by remembering the moment they learned he had been elected, and describing their reactions in a video message.<\/p>\n

“As we watched white smoke billow from the chimneys at the Vatican, the last thing any of us watching on TV in Chicago were thinking about was that a native of Chicago would be elected Holy Father,” Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago Robert Lombardo said in a statement. 7th May Video Message<\/a> Pope Leo XIV’s first anniversary as Pope is being celebrated.<\/p>\n

The message also included testimony from Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois; Bishop Ronald Hicks of New York; Cardinal Blaise Cupich of Chicago; Bishop Paul Etienne of Seattle; Archbishop Michel Rozanski of St. Louis; Auxiliary Bishop Christopher Cook of Philadelphia; Bishop Douglas Lucia of Syracuse, New York; Bishop Robert McClory of Gary, Indiana; and Bishop Michael Barber, SJ, of Oakland, California.<\/p>\n

Several bishops recalled their shock at learning that the new Pope was an American.<\/p>\n

Rozanski said, “When I heard about the election of Pope Leo, I couldn’t believe it. I really had to do a double-take because the conventional wisdom has been that there will never be a Pope from the United States.”<\/p>\n

“I remember my reaction to his election was one of surprise because everyone said, ‘Well, this could never be American,'” Lucia said. “So when his name was announced, I was actually at the diocesan admin meeting and everyone said, ‘Who is that?’ And I say, ‘He’s an American.'”<\/p>\n

McClory described his reaction as “a tremendous excitement and joy” and echoed his brother the bishop, saying: “I never thought in my lifetime that we would have a Pope from the United States. I just didn’t think it was a possibility.”<\/p>\n

Bishop William Byrne of Springfield, Massachusetts remembers “flying home” from the grocery store when he heard the news that a new Pope had been elected, and he was “very excited” when he looked it up on his computer to see the results. <\/p>\n

“Being from Chicago, we also feel a double sense of pride,” Cupich said. “After all, we like to say that Chicago produced a Pope, and we’re very proud of that.”<\/p>\n

Leo was elected as the 267th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church on May 8, 2025.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American bishops marked the first anniversary of the election of Pope Leo XIV by remembering the moment they learned he had been elected, and describing their reactions in a video message. “As we watched white smoke billow from the chimneys at the Vatican, the last thing any of us watching on TV in Chicago were<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":125241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[430,19598,3149,249,248,250,218],"class_list":{"0":"post-125237","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-bishops","9":"tag-detail","10":"tag-election","11":"tag-leo","12":"tag-pope","13":"tag-xiv","14":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125242,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125237\/revisions\/125242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}