Jeanie Hannaman

By Dan Hitchens, First Things - Robert Prevost—as he was until yesterday—is unlikely to fulfill the liberal cardinals’ nightmare of a pope who would rip up Francis’s legacy. He seems to be well-liked by the more progressive cardinals—some of whom appeared beaming with delight on the balcony of St. Peter’s yesterday. But conservatives, too, expect a less harmful pontificate than a Pope Francis II would have delivered. Leo XIV’s first choices—the traditional name and traditional papal dress—are in themselves a retreat from his predecessor’s example. And he was, after all, spotted last week “entering Cardinal Burke’s house for a very secret summit.”