Pope Leo suggests people may return to the church because of an American pope

People may come back to the church in part because it now has an American-born leader, Pope Leo XIV told NBC News’ Lester Holt at the Vatican on Monday.

Holt was part of NBC News’ team covering a news conference for some 6,000 journalists from around the world when he conducted a brief interview with the new pope.

“At the end of his remarks, he stood up and he went into the crowd,” Holt said today on NBC’s “TODAY” show. “He came down several aisles, and eventually came to me, and I asked him I think the question a lot of people have, ‘What’s the importance of having an American pope?’ And he said to me, ‘You tell me.’”

“Then he went on to offer an anecdote he had heard that suggests that people are coming back to the church because there is an American pope,” Holt said.

As for whether the Chicago-born leader is coming back to visit his home town soon, that seems unlikely. “I don’t think so,” he told Holt.

“And that falls in line with much of what we’ve heard from experts here, that he’s got a lot of work to do on this end, at the Vatican before we see him on the road,” Holt added.

The NBC Nightly News anchor, who has reported from across the world, described the unexpected encounter a “highlight-of-the-career type moment for me.”

The pontiff spoke with Holt after he made an impassioned plea for peace and expressed solidarity with imprisoned journalists in his first news briefing since becoming the pope Monday. Leo called for “the precious gift of free speech and of the press” to be protected.

Leo, 69, was elected last week as the first pope born in the United States. The 69-year-old Augustinian led Sunday prayers at the Vatican.

Some have asked whether Leo, who is seen as a progressive within the Catholic church, could become an influential voice in the U.S. on the febrile debate over immigration.