Pope Leo XIV is the “bridge builder” the cardinals look for when selecting a new Pope, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, told Newsmax Saturday.
On Thursday, the cardinal electors of the Catholic Church elected Chicago native Robert Prevost, 69, as the first American-born Pope to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. Prevost chose Leo XIV as his papal name.
“Saturday Agenda” host Rob Astorino asked Dolan if politics played any role in Prevost’s election.
“Now, we need to use ‘politics’ in the best sense of the word, as Plato and Aristotle used it: an extraordinarily noble vocation bringing people together and leading by virtue. So ‘politics’ in that noble identity is always part of the equation,” Dolan said.
“So a man’s ability to speak in a compelling way to leaders of the world and to bring them together and to be a real pontiff, a bridge builder, we would always look for that in a guy.”
Dolan said the cardinals do not assess a potential Pope’s ability based on the politics of the day.
“OK, but what do we translate that to — saying, “Oh, we got a guy that can stand up to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin; we got a guy that can talk about Ukraine; we can get a guy that can stare [President] Donald Trump in the eyes?’
“No, there was nothing ad hominem. There was nothing personal,” he said.
“He’s looking forward to sitting down with all of them. I was happy to hear Donald Trump say, ‘I look forward to meeting him.'”
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