Papa Americano

Habemus papam and nobody expected this…

It’s the Christmas season of 2010.

A young boy is waddling around a fancy hotel in a tropical climate. A party celebrating the New Year and Christmas lives on into the darkness of night. The DJ plays “Poker Face” as the boy descends the stairs from a suite room to the back patio of the hotel, currently occupied by celebrants.

The boy’s uncle and his cousin round the corner as a new song begins playing. A swing-like horn is introducing a phrase that would dominate the dance party scene for so much of the rest of the early 2010s.

“Pa-Parla americano”.

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I was in my first-period class on May 8th. It was then that I randomly had the thought to check on how the conclave was going. Just a couple of minutes before I checked, white smoke began pouring out of the chimney of the Sistine Chapel.

I immediately dropped the project I was editing together for my video production class and dedicated the next hour and a half of my attention to the announcement of our new pope.

Many of my friends and I – both Catholic and not, Asian and non-Asian – had been on the edge of our seats for weeks, particularly hoping for a pontiff who would progress Pope Francis’ ideals, humility, and love for the people he served. We’d been quietly cheering for one specific candidate: Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines.

I know that we were not alone in hoping Tagle would be the first Asian-Pacific pope in Catholic history. Practically the entire nation of the Philippines and its diaspora were right there with us, watching the doors to the balcony at St. Peter’s Cathedral.

By the time I got to my journalism class in my second period, some of the people in the halls had heard about the white smoke. People were saying things like: “Oh, this is it!”, “We’re gonna have an Asian pope!”, and “I just hope whoever it is makes the right decisions for the world.” So I turned on Vatican News and the New York Times live updates page on our touch-screen television in class, and we waited.

And waited…

And waited…

And texted our friends and family that it was happening…

And waited…

“Habemus papam! Eminentissimum ac reverendissimum Dominum Robertum Franciscum Sanctae Romane Ecclesiae Cardinalem Prevost qui sibi nomen imposuit Leo XIV.”

It was Cardinal Robert Prevost. He’s an American-born cardinal who has spent much of his career between the U.S. and Peru.

And that’s when I – and many of my fellow Filipino-American friends – felt a switch we only ever feel during the Olympics.

We went from cheering for the Philippines to cheering for the U.S. in a heartbeat.

I felt both my Filipino and my American as a Filipino-American in the span of fifteen seconds.

And he’s from Chicago… like me?

Thankfully, we now know that Pope Leo XIV, the name he chose for his papacy, is in many ways a more diplomatic but still very similar continuation of the late Pope Francis. His first words, praying for peace to be upon all in the world, reverberated throughout the church… and hopefully, to the places on this planet that need it most.

So May 8th… what a crazy day, May 8th.

Habemus papam, and he’s Americano.

Author: Vien Santiago

Editors: Luna Y., Blenda Y.

Image source: Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu, Unsplash