TU professor shares experience covering papal conclave with Vatican Media

As the world watched the election of a new pope, a Tulsa connection quietly stood in the middle of the action.

Dr. Donald Prudlo, a professor of Catholic studies at the University of Tulsa, recently returned from Rome after working with Vatican Media during the papal conclave.

News On 6's LeAnne Taylor sat down with Prudlo for a Q&A about his rare front-row seat to history.

Q: You just returned from Rome. How are you feeling after the trip?

A: “Yes, just early this week, just recovering from jet lag today, so.”

Q: Tell us how you got connected with Vatican Media.

A: “I travel to Rome very often for research in my job as a professor of Catholic studies, and while I'm there, I have friends who work at Vatican Media. They work in TV, in the English language section and in radio and in media, social media, and very often they'll just call me in case they need a historical or theological consultation. And it's just developed. Over the years, I've been coveringthe Vatican with Vatican Media since the late 2000s, 2009, I think I started. Then, I started broadcasting canonization. So when the Catholic Church creates a new saint, I will come over and I will serve as sort of a color commentator for that event. And then I was there in 2013 for the previous conclave, covered that and I couldn't miss this one. I had to go out. When I heard that Francis had passed away, I knew when the conclave would roughly be. And so I came over.”

Q: You shared some photos with us. What was the experience like being in St. Peter’s Square?

A: “It's extraordinary because it's such a worldwide event. There were 4,000 journalists covering this, and when you come there, you see people from all over the world. So you're in the square with hundreds of thousands of people. And that's not an exaggeration. Hundreds of thousands of people from Africa, from Asia, from Latin America, from North America. And they're all there, united, waiting for this event to happen—an event that's sort of behind the scenes. You don't always get to see the mechanics of it. We can describe what we think is happening, but we can't really see. And then they're waiting there very much with bated breath for the smoke to come out of the smokestack.”

Q: Of the potential choices for pope, did this selection surprise you?

A: “I did hear Robert Prevost in about a week before starting to generate some buzz in circles that I knew, and so I wasn't as surprised. What I was surprised with was that they would select an American. I didn't think I would see that in my lifetime. But the great thing about Pope Leo is he has an astonishing resume. He's from Chicago, of course. He has Tulsa connections, but he served as a missionary and then a bishop in South America. He served as superior of his religious order, the Augustinians, and he served as the head of the Vatican Dicastery, which is sort of like a secretary of state in those positions. And so an exceptional resume, someone that brings a lot of experience to the job, but also with that really neat American connection.”

Q: What do you anticipate Pope Leo will bring to the role?

A: “I think he's going to be very much a unifying force. The church has 1.4 billion adherents around the world, and his worldwide experience comes with a sensitivity to all of those different regions—Europeans and Americans and Asians and Africans. And he's going to be someone who's able to—the meaning of pope, one of the meanings is bridge builder—and he referred to that in his opening discussions. And so he's going to be able to bring steadiness. He's a good organizer, he's a good manager, and I think he's going to be able to organize the Vatican Curia, which are the offices that serve the pope and run him. And he's going to be able to reach out to people in a very authentic and humble way, and I think he's been showing that over the last several days in his first days in office.”

Q: You’ll be returning to Italy again soon. What are your plans?

A: “Absolutely. So one of my favorite things to do is to take students to Rome, and I've been doing that for 20 years, and we're doing a TU Jumpstart with our honors college. And so we'll be there in July. I'll also be covering the canonization of several saints at that period. And then next year in 2026, as part of my sabbatical, I will be living in Rome and teaching at the Angelicum, the University of Saint Thomas, and providing periodic commentary with my Vatican Media friends.”

Q: You’ve now covered two papal conclaves. Do you feel like you’ve done it all?

A: “The shocking thing about conclaves—it's not a regular event. That's why people get so excited. Remember, in 2005, we had waited 27 years from the last conclave, and this pope is quite young, so we might not have one for—we hope, we hope, we hope it's not going to be for a long time. But it exercises such a fascination, the external ritual of the Catholic Church and people being able to watch it through media, through TV, listen to it on radio. It's an astonishing thing how many people are engaged at this time because they just don't know. In a period of instant communication, you know, having cardinals sealed in a room and we just don't know. We just have to wait. And we're not used to that.”