Does this explain the election of Pope Leo?

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Oct 26, 2026

Within a month after each papal election, stories begin to appear, claiming to provide the inside story of what happened in the conclave. I don’t take those stories too seriously, and you shouldn’t, either. Whoever provided that inside account (assuming the reporter didn’t make it up) was violating his sacred oath to keep the conclave proceedings secret. If he was so cavalier about his oath, why should you trust what he says?

But what happens before the conclave is fair game for reporters. The cardinals (and other influential Church leaders) have informal discussions before the papal election, and while those meetings are private, there are no solemn oaths of secrecy involved. So I’m interested in this report by Francesco Capozza of Il Tiempo (the link is to a translation posted by Rorate Caeli, about two dinner meetings in the days before the conclave, hosted by Cardinal Raymond Burke).

According to Capozza, the dinner guests included all of the cardinals from the US, along with a smattering of cardinals from other countries. Each of the two dinners also included one of the leading papabile: first Cardinal Parolin, the Secretary of State; then Cardinal Prevost. Capozza reports that the dinner conversations produced a clear consensus in favor of Prevost:

Those who were present have revealed that when the moment came for coffee and digestifs, the die was already cast: the package of votes—between twenty and twenty-five—in the hands of the “conservative” group would flow, from the second scrutiny onward, to Prevost and not to Parolin, given that he had obtained considerably more votes in the first ballot.

This is, I repeat, an interesting analysis; I take it seriously. But I would caution against accepting it as the explanation of Cardinal Prevost’s election, for several reasons:

• Notice that Capozza says that dinner guests would favor Prevost “from the second scrutiny onward.” He also reports that in the first scrutiny (ballot) during the conclave, the Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdo led the voting. If that is accurate—again I am skeptical of any report about events during the conclave—it is not clear why a “conservative” bloc would feel obliged to choose between Prevost and Parolin as an alternative. Most Vatican-watchers had rated Erdo a more conservative candidate than either of them.
• If all of the American cardinals were in attendance at the dinners in Cardinal Burke’s apartment—including Cardinals Cupich, McElroy, Gregory, and Tobin—then these could not be characterized as gatherings of a “conservative” bloc. More likely the prelates were hoping to settle on a compromise candidate, judging that neither a “liberal” nor a “conservative” cardinal could reach the necessary majority.
• Pre-conclave dinners give the voting cardinals a valuable opportunity to weigh both the merits of the papabile and their potential support. But the results of those discussions are not binding; the participants do not endorse a candidate for the papacy, and each cardinal remains free to cast his own secret ballot as he chooses. There were other such meetings before the 2015 conclave, and cardinals had time to change their minds. A dinner might produce a trend in favor of one cardinal, but it does not guarantee a “package” of conclave votes.
• Even if the Burke dinners did end in a consensus, a bloc of “between twenty and twenty-five” votes was not sufficient to elect a new Pontiff. It was a substantial bloc, to be sure, potentially a crucial swing vote if the first ballots produced no clear front-runner.
• Capozza’s sources were obviously cardinals who attended the dinners, and saw them as key factors in building support for Cardinal Prevost. Certainly the discussions would have been key factors in the thinking of those particular cardinals as the conclave approached. Other cardinals may have been swayed—for or against Prevost—by completely different influences. Human nature being what it is, the people who participate in any historic act are tempted to exaggerate their own importance.
• Finally, I would wager that the cardinals most likely to exaggerate their role in (or before) a conclave are also the ones most loquacious in responding to inquisitive reporters.

My conclusion: The Capozza story is entirely plausible, an example of solid journalism, but not a complete account. It has the ring of truth but not the certainty of the Gospel.