There are only a handful of situations where journalists, usually guided by strict rules of the trade, act like everyone else. Meeting the new pope for the first time at the Vatican City’s modernist Paul VI Audience Hall became one of those events.
Prior to Pope Leo XIV’s entrance on Monday morning, the crowd representing the world press — filling a fair portion of the 6,000-seat aula — was restless in anticipation, dropping all pretence there was in the audience for any other presser.
