As poor rejoice, cardinal says pope’s electors ‘weren’t dealing with world,’ but ‘with the kingdom of God’

ROME (OSV News) — The joy was palpable in Palazzo Migliori, the Roman palace turned homeless shelter, right next to Bernini Colonnade, on May 11, the first Sunday after the election of Pope Leo XIV.

The needy of the Eternal City were glad to have their cardinal back from conclave, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, sharing news about the new pontiff — who was “chosen by the Holy Spirit,” the prelate said.

“I had a very good impression of the pope,” said Gennaro, a needy man who spent the night in the Palazzo and after Mass was ready to get coffee and breakfast.

After extensive renovation carried out under the supervision of Cardinal Krajewski, prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Charity under Pope Francis, Palazzo Migliori — with historical frescoes left intact on the walls — was opened in November 2019 as a shelter for the homeless.

“He comes from America, a country that had not yet had its pope,” Gennaro said of the American-Peruvian pontiff, but precisely because Pope Leo is from the United States — “a country of immigrants, a country of British, Spanish, Italian, Irish, Polish, Chinese roots — so he is very welcoming.”

“And to us Italians — he spoke in very good Italian!” Gennaro, who only gave his first name, told OSV News.

Father Joseph Farrell, the American vicar general of the Order of St. Augustine, who delivered a homily in the chapel of the Palazzo, said that for his part, pronouncing “quattordici” — “fourteen” in Italian — for Leo XIV was quite a task for him.

“Much easier for me to just say ‘fourteen’!” he said, pronouncing the number in English.

On what was Good Shepherd Sunday, Father Farrell, turning to Cardinal Krajewski, told the poor gathered in the chapel: “Our friend the cardinal told us last week: ‘We hope that we come soon on Sunday with a new pope!” adding that “the Good Shepherd listens to the voice of the flock.”

Cardinal Krajewski, for more than a decade the papal right hand for charity, told OSV News that during the conclave, once the cardinals were locked in the Sistine Chapel, he kept praying with the words of Father Jan Twardowski, a famed — and humorous — Polish priest-poet: “‘Duchu Swiety, ni z tego, ni z owego tchnij na nas na calego!’ — ‘Holy Spirit, out of this, out of that, breathe on us all the way!’ And he breathed, and he breathed,” the cardinal admitted.

He said the 133 cardinals gathered in the Sistine Chapel “turned out to be a wonderful instrument of the Holy Spirit.”

He said the fact that “no one expected such an election” — and that Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was “not on the media lists” — “is the confirmation that the Holy Spirit chooses” only “with the participation of the cardinals.”

“The pope was elected very quickly” and “the joy of the cardinals, once the conclave was over,” was visible, the Polish prelate told OSV News.

“When everyone came up to the Holy Father and gave the ‘omagium’ — the pledge of reverence and obedience — you could see the beaming faces of all the cardinals.”

He said: “You should know that the cardinals are from all over the world, and for the most part we didn’t know each other, because it’s hard to know someone in a few days from one of his speeches or from a photo or a resume.”

The Holy Spirit, he said, works his own way, and doesn’t need the external world to tell the cardinals who should be the pope. “And that’s why today we have another pope from the periphery of the world, but at the same time from the center of the world,” he said, “because he worked in Peru, but is an American. The joy afterwards of the people in St. Peter’s Square confirmed what the Holy Spirit had accomplished in the Sistine Chapel.”

Cardinal Krajewski told OSV News that the election was filled with “unity,” and the speed of the election was the result.

“I can’t talk about the number of papal votes, but the joy of the cardinals coming out of the chapel was as great as the people who saw him for the first time on the balcony.”

“There is no influence of public opinion or all kinds of parties on what happens in the Sistine Chapel. There really is the Holy Spirit who is guiding the cardinals,” he continued. “We were completely separated from the world. We didn’t know if the smoke had already appeared. We didn’t hear the bells. … We didn’t have access to newspapers, to radio, to television. There was prayer, staying together and being in the Sistine Chapel. And that’s when the Holy Spirit could work, because we weren’t dealing with the world, we were dealing with the kingdom of God.”

Fabrizio Salvati, who delivered the reading during Mass in the Palazzo, said the new pope is “like a newly born baby.” Speaking to OSV News in front of the Palazzo in fluent English, the guitarist by training said of Pope Leo: “I believe he’s going to be a great pope, one of the greatest ever.”

He said his own story was “nothing special.” “I began to lose my job. My marriage didn’t work,” he explained, but that was “very lucky, very, very lucky,” because “I met somebody who could and wanted to help.” That somebody was a Sant’Egidio volunteer who eventually led him to Palazzo Migliori. Later he became an editor at L’Osservatore di Strada — a branch of the famed L’Osservatore Romano.

Meeting the Sant’Egidio female volunteer and writing for the magazine, “these are two most important things that changed my life,” Salvati told OSV News. They “allowed me to start over. Both were established by (Pope) Francis. This is why I said the other day to the BBC: I owe everything to him.”

With the election of the new pope, “Cardinal Krajewski explained to me how the Holy Spirit is not lazy,” Salvati told OSV News.

He said the Augustinians, who are volunteers and helpers in Palazzo Migliori, are “touching the sky” — equivalent to “over the moon” — with the election of their own brother.

“I don’t think he will quit anything about the poor. He will carry on. I’m sure he will carry on.”

Asked whether Pope Leo will continue Pope Francis’ charity work — with Cardinal Krajewski as his “Robin Hood” — the cardinal answered: “The answer to this is the biography of the current pope, who spent so many years in Peru and in the poor districts of his diocese, where he worked and where everyone remembers him. He was a shepherd, one who was not indifferent to the plight of the poor, and now he can bring this to the whole world.”

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