The Texan Who Helped Elect the First American Pope

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo hasn’t seen Conclave. When he consulted his colleague Bishop Robert Barron, a frequent television commentator, “he said, ‘Don’t bother.’ I always take his two cents’ worth.” A fictional conclave can hardly compare to the real thing. “It’s far more powerful when you’re standing in front of The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, taking your oath, than anything else they could make up in a movie—that’s a very powerful moment, and every cardinal will tell you that,” DiNardo says.Of the 133 cardinals who elevated their American colleague Robert Prevost to the papacy last week, DiNardo, 75, was the only Texan. Pope Benedict XVI made him the state’s first-ever cardinal in 2007, and for 19 years, he served as the archbishop of the…

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