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One cardinal who cast his ballot said the pope’s choice of the papal name Leo might signal a particular interest in workers’ rights.
Elizabeth Dias, who covers religion, reported from Rome.
May 9, 2025, 9:23 p.m. ET
American cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church described the historic papal conclave that concluded this week as relatively easy, with no arm-twisting or overt politicking.
When their work was done — and as the outside world waited to learn the new pope’s identity — the cardinals inside the Sistine Chapel “went wild,” one recalled on Friday, when the man they had elected privately told them that he would take the name Leo.
That name, they said, could be an indication of the pope’s plans.
“Leo was the first modern pope, who spoke in defense of workers’ rights and what workers needed to have a just wage, not only to support their family and eke out a living, but also to build a patrimony they could pass on to their children,” said Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, referring Pope Leo XIII.
That Pope Leo wrote a landmark papal document called Rerum Novarum in 1891, addressing the needs and dignity of the working class, which helped spark a social justice movement amid the Industrial Revolution.
“It wasn’t the defense of the right to property for people to accumulate as much as they want, but for poor people who did not have property as a patrimony to pass on,” Cardinal Cupich said.
The issues of workers rights, immigration and bridges across divides appear to be taking shape as the issues that could define the legacy of Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV.
