By Coral Gables Gazette staff
When white smoke rose from the Sistine Chapel on May 8, 2025, even seasoned Vatican observers were caught off guard. The man who stepped onto the balcony — Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV — became the first American to lead the Catholic Church, breaking a two-millennia pattern shaped as much by geopolitics as theology.
On Monday night, the journalist who secured his first interview as pope will bring that story to Coral Gables.
Elise Ann Allen, Rome correspondent for Crux and author of the only currently available biography of Leo XIV, will appear at a Books & Books event held at the Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ at 7 p.m. Monday, May 4. The conversation will be led by the Rev. Dr. Laurinda M. Hafner, senior pastor of the church. Tickets include admission for two guests and a copy of the book.
A historic election — and what made it possible
Prevost’s election was notable not simply because of his nationality, but because it upended a longstanding assumption inside the Vatican: that a pope should not come from a global superpower.
What made him viable, by most accounts, was a life that resists easy categorization. Born in Chicago, he spent more than half his ecclesiastical career in Peru, where he served as a missionary and later as a bishop. He holds both American and Peruvian citizenship and speaks multiple languages. Those who know him describe a leader shaped less by national identity than by the demands of a global church.
His choice of name — Leo XIV — was equally deliberate. It echoes Leo XIII, the 19th-century pope associated with Catholic social teaching on labor and economic justice. In choosing it, Prevost signaled an intention to engage the ethical challenges of a new technological era with similar seriousness.
The book — and the access behind it
Allen’s biography, published April 28 by Image, arrives with unusual authority. It is the first book-length account of Leo XIV’s life and the only one to include his own words in a post-election interview.
Drawing on years of Vatican reporting, archival research, and extensive field interviews, Allen reconstructs the path that led from Chicago to Rome to Peru and back again. The portrait that emerges is not simply institutional, but personal — a life shaped by formation, travel, and proximity to the evolving realities of the global church.
The book also places the pope’s rise within a broader context: the internal debates of the Vatican, the pressures facing Catholicism worldwide, and the search for leadership that can navigate both.
A journalist at the center of the story
Allen’s vantage point is part of what makes the book compelling.
As Rome correspondent for Crux, she has spent years covering the Vatican’s internal politics, theological debates, and human dramas. That proximity positioned her to secure the first interview with Leo XIV after his election — a moment that moved her from observer to participant in the story she now tells.
Her work reflects both the discipline of a reporter and the narrative instincts of a biographer, translating institutional complexity into something readable without sacrificing nuance.
A moderator with local weight
The conversation will be led by Pastor Laurie Hafner, who has served as senior pastor of Coral Gables Congregational UCC since 2006.
Hafner brings a perspective shaped by decades of interfaith engagement and civic leadership. Locally, she is known for an annual food drive in which she remains atop the church tower until at least six tons of donations are collected — a tradition that has yielded more than 125 tons over the years. Nationally, she has participated in legal challenges on religious grounds and contributed to scholarship on faith and public life.
Her background makes her a natural interlocutor for a book that engages questions of leadership, morality, and the role of religion in a changing world.
Why this event matters
The first American pope was elected less than a year ago. The first biography of his life was published less than a week ago. The only journalist to have interviewed him is in Coral Gables Monday night.
For readers interested in religion, politics, history, or the individuals who shape global institutions, it is an opportunity that is unlikely to repeat soon.
