Cardinal Robert Prevost, O.S.A. has chosen to be known by Leo XIV.

It’s hard to describe the mood in Vatican City right now. There is great expectation and excitement but also a sense of unease.

That is the question ghosts really should be made to answer: Why remain where you have been most miserable?

Now that the 133 cardinal electors are ensconced in the Sistine Chapel to elect a successor to Pope Francis, some potential candidates have come to the fore.

When else do we get an opportunity like this, to take someone at this level of leadership at face value?

For these next days of waiting, first and foremost for the cardinals in conclave and then also for all of us: Come, Holy Spirit, bringing wisdom, discernment and patience.

Some five hours after the opening Mass, the cardinals were to process into the Sistine Chapel, swear an oath to uphold the conclave rules, listen to a final reflection and—if they chose to do so—conduct the first ballot.

Perhaps a revealing question is whether the church will continue the radical novelty Francis brought as a pope from a religious order—and whether this is the continuity needed now.

German Catholic bishops say that even where the party has not tipped into extremism, it has failed to reform itself of such tendencies. They charge that a nationalism incompatible with Christianity has become the AfD’s animating ideology.

Cardinal Frank Leo, the 53-year-old archbishop of Toronto, told Gerard O’Connell that he does not think age or nationality is an important factor in choosing the next pope. His top priority? A leader who listens.