Leo XIV: One year in

Three hours after his election, Robert Francis Prevost stood visibly nervous on the central loggia of St. Peter's Basilica, had his notes handed to him, swallowed hard, and then spread his arms wide. Then Leo XIV, as he was now called, read his first sentence as Pope from the sheet of paper in Italian: "La pace sia con tutti voi" ("Peace be with you all"). A wave of cheers erupted from the tens of thousands who had flocked to St. Peter's Square that May evening after the white smoke from the Sistine Chapel.