Cardinal Antoine Kambanda, the first Rwandan to take part in the election of a new pope, has described as an ‘edifying experience’ his participation in the selection of Pope Leo XIV.
He said the choice of the 69-year-old as successor to the late Pope Francis was ‘a good surprise’ and described the new pope as a “pastor who gives hope.”
Sharing his thoughts in comments he sent to The New Times on Saturday morning, two days after the unveiling of the new pope, Cardinal Kambanda reflected on his personal experience during the Conclave and views on the choice of the new Catholic leader.
“The Conclave went on very well and it did not take long. On the second day we had a new Pope,” he said. “It was my first time in the Conclave and indeed I was the first Rwandan to participate in the process.”
“It was a very edifying experience. A highly sacred act.”
He added, “I really felt the power of the prayers of all one billion and four hundred million Catholics in the world and the prayers of non-Catholics for the Catholic Church to have a shepherd, a leader in a world that is a crisis of leadership, given the unnecessary conflicts and wars today, yet all people are brothers and sisters destined to live together in peace.”
“I am very grateful to the Christians in Rwanda and, in general, in the whole world,” he said.
The election of Robert Francis Prevost, the first U.S-born pope in the Church’s 2000-year history, Kambanda said, was “really guided by the Holy Spirit who chooses whom he wants and when he wants and from where he wants.”
“The election Pope Leo XIV was a good surprise to many people which proves that it is the Holy Spirit himself beyond all human speculations,” said Kambanda, 66, whom Pope Francis named the first Rwandan cardinal back in November 2020.
“We thank God who has given the right person at the right time. Pope Leo XIV is a man of great experience,” he added.
Born in Chicago in the U.S, the future pope worked in Peru, serving as a priest missionary of St Augustin’s Order, with his two decades of service in Latin America believed to have played a key part in the Cardinal electors’ decision to break with the tradition and pick an American pope for the first time.
Latin America, which also produced the 266th pope of the Roman Catholic Church in Pope Francis, boasts the world’s largest number of Catholics, estimated at 48.75 per cent.
Pope Leo worked in the content for two decades, even becoming a Peruvian citizen by naturalization.
As Superior General of the Augustinian Order, he travelled around the world visiting the missionaries, including in east Africa, which Kambanda says gave him “quite a wide experience of the reality of the Church in the whole world”.
Pope Leo, Kambanda said, “is a man of prayer who is very close to the people, is compassionated, and with apostolic zeal.”
“His first message is peace and he’s a pastor who gives hope.”
