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Pope Leo XIV said Fri­day that his elec­tion was both a cross to bear and a bless­ing as he cel­e­brat­ed his first Mass and de­tails be­gan to emerge of how votes swift­ly co­a­lesced to make him his­to­ry’s first Amer­i­can pope.

Freed from their con­clave, car­di­nals be­gan de­scrib­ing the days and hours lead­ing up to the fi­nal bal­lot Thurs­day af­ter­noon that brought Leo past the two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty need­ed. Many mar­veled that the Chica­go-born Au­gus­tin­ian mis­sion­ary Robert Pre­vost reached the thresh­old so quick­ly, giv­en the vast di­ver­si­ty of vot­ers and the tra­di­tion­al taboo against a U.S. pope be­cause of the sec­u­lar pow­er the coun­try wields.

“It is a mir­a­cle of the Holy Spir­it,” said Car­di­nal Fer­nan­do Na­talio Choma­lí Garib, arch­bish­op of San­ti­a­go, Chile. He not­ed that 133 men who bare­ly knew one an­oth­er from 70 coun­tries came to an agree­ment in just over 24 hours. A mir­a­cle, he said, “and al­so an ex­am­ple for all our coun­tries where no­body comes to an agree­ment.”