Details have begun to emerge of how votes swiftly coalesced to make Pope Leo XIV history’s first American pope.

Pope Leo XIV, the first American leader of the Catholic Church, previously known as Robert Francis Prevost, returned to the Sistine Chapel the day after his election to deliver a mass for the College of Cardinals, where he described his role as both a cross to bear and a blessing and urged church leaders to make themselves “small.”

Newly elected Pope Leo XIV has lead his first Mass as pontiff, in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel. The Pope was joined by cardinals for prayers and hymns, the morning after his identity was revealed to the world on the Vatican balcony overlooking St Peter's Square. Pope