Lester Holt asks the Pope when he’ll return to his hometown
The newly elected Pope Leo answered Lester Holt’s inquiry about whether he plans to visit the United States with a largely unsurprising retort
After abruptly quitting NBC Nightly News in a move that rocked the TV industry, Lester Holt said that he asked Pope Leo directly if he planned on visiting his hometown any time soon after attending a media event with the new pontiff.
“I asked him specifically, ‘Any chances of getting back home?'” Holt told NBC Chicago’s Mary Ann Ahern, referring to the U.S. or Chicago, specifically. The pope said, “I don’t think so,” Holt said.
“I think that falls in line with what we’ve been hearing, that he has a lot of work to do in the Vatican, and that’s his main focus.” Lester Holt spent more than a decade of his career in journalism in Chicago.
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Conservatives and traditionalist Catholics are cautiously optimistic over the historic election of Pope Leo XIV, hopeful that he will return doctrinal rigor to the papacy, even as progressives sense he will continue Francis’ reformist agenda.
Pope Leo XIV on Monday called for the release of imprisoned journalists and affirmed the “precious gift of free speech and the press” in an audience with some of the 6,000 journalists who descended on Rome to cover his election as the first American pontiff.
Leo received a standing ovation as he entered the Vatican auditorium for his first meeting with representatives of the general public.
The 69-year-old Augustinian missionary, elected in a 24-hour conclave last week, called for journalists to use words for peace, to reject war and to give voice to the voiceless.
He expressed solidarity with journalists around the world who have been jailed for trying to seek and report the truth. Drawing applause from the crowd, he asked for their release.
“The church recognises in these witnesses — I am thinking of those who report on war even at the cost of their lives — the courage of those who defend dignity, justice and the right of people to be informed, because only informed individuals can make free choices,” he said.
“The suffering of these imprisoned journalists challenges the conscience of nations and the international community, calling on all of us to safeguard the precious gift of free speech and of the press.”
Leo opened the meeting with a few words in English, joking that if the crowd was still awake and applauding at the end, it mattered more than the ovation that greeted him.
Turning to Italian, he thanked the journalists for their work covering the papal transition and urged them to use words of peace.
“Peace begins with each one of us: in the way we look at others, listen to others and speak about others,” he said. “In this sense, the way we communicate is of fundamental importance: we must say ‘no’ to the war of words and images, we must reject the paradigm of war.”
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