Pope Francis, center, leaves the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome on his first day on the job. (Ciro Fusco, European Pressphoto Agency / ) 
 
 VATICAN CITY — In private meetings before their conclave to elect a new pope, Roman Catholic cardinals took note when one of their number rose to speak — clearly, quietly and persuasively — about the need to purify the church and streamline its unwieldy bureaucracy. 
 
 Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio seemed to sum up the very themes and challenges the leaders were debating. He was forceful without being abrasive, one cardinal recalled Thursday. 
 
 By the time they strode solemnly into the magnificent Sistine Chapel and closed away the outside world Tuesday, many of the cardinals had significantly refined their lists of candidates. Scarcely 24 hours later, on a fifth round of voting, at least 77 of 115 prelates chose the unassuming cardinal from Buenos Aires as the 266th pontiff. 
 
 The choice was historic, making him the first pope from the Americas and the first from a continent other than Europe in more than a millennium. The choice of Bergoglio, who will reign as Pope Francis, also stunned much of the public and many veteran Vatican-watchers. Almost no one predicted that Bergoglio would be elected to replace Pope Benedict XVI, who resigned last month. 
 
 Cardinals take an oath of secrecy that bars them from discussing in detail the proceedings that lead to the election, but on Thursday details were beginning to emerge slowly, forming an illuminating if partial picture of what happened and how. 
 
 "Most of us had two or three candidates when we entered" the chapel, Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez of Mexico said in an interview. "We did not go in with our minds blank." 
 
 Cardinals often say it is the Holy Spirit that guides them in the conclave. But the real work, the trading of names and weighing of pros and cons, takes place in the days before. Over pasta dinners and informal chats, and especially in the congregations — the meetings where cardinals speak — they air grievances or outline plans and visions. For some, it is as close to a campaign speech as they get. 
 
 While support coalesced around Bergoglio, other candidates may have peaked or failed to gain traction because of serious criticism by numerous cardinals of the Italian-dominated Vatican bureaucracy. 
 
 The usually formidable voting muscle of the Italian bloc was weakened by the so-called Vatileaks scandal that pointed to allegations of corruption and infighting in the Curia, as the bureaucracy is known. That might have hurt the chances of the archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Angelo Scola, who had frequently been mentioned as a possible front-runner. Although some considered Scola an outsider, the controversy may have hurt all Italian candidates. 
 
 Embarrassingly for the Italian clergy, its bishops conference Wednesday night sent a quick message of congratulations to the new pope — addressing it to Scola instead of Bergoglio. 
 
 In each round of conclave balloting, votes for other candidates dropped off or shifted to Bergoglio until he received the majority needed, Sandoval said. The fact that Bergoglio came in second in the 2005 conclave that chose Benedict may have had an effect. 
 
 By the third ballot, the trend was clear, cardinals said. Bergoglio became somber. In the 2005 conclave, he had told fellow cardinals he did not want the job. 
 
 "Cardinal Bergoglio wouldn't have become pope in the fifth ballot if he had not been a really strong contender for the papacy from the beginning," Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn told reporters. 
 
 The election over, the new pope declined an elevated throne to receive the cardinals' pledges of allegiance. Then he joined them on the charter bus back to their residence rather than allowing himself to be whisked away in a limousine. Later, according to Brazilian cardinals, Pope Francis offered a champagne toast to the group at dinner and commented on their decision: "May God forgive you." 
 
 "Don't you feel the new energy in the church?" the former archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahony, said on his Twitter account. 
 
 Much of the criticism of Vatican management comes from cardinals who do not live in Rome but work in the far corners of the globe. There may have been a concerted push to challenge the standard modus operandi that led to the scandals that tarnished Benedict and his papacy. 
 
 Bergoglio "brings a new style to the papacy," said John Thavis, an expert on the pontificate. "Yes, the cardinals see him as a manager. But they also see a whole new attitude. They saw it in him and not in the other candidates who pretty much follow in line with the way things have been done [at the Vatican] all along." 
 
 The less formal, more down-to-earth style became apparent to the public with Francis' simple speech and silent prayer Wednesday night on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica. It continued Thursday when he returned to his hotel, picked up his bags and paid the bill. 
 
 Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., also suggested that many of his colleagues went into the conclave with their minds all but made up. Most of the work was done in the congregations, he said. 
 
 "We were hoping to keep the focus on what is today a renewal of the emphasis on the spiritual dimension of life … to make people realize they have a relationship with God even in this very, very material world," Wuerl told reporters. "We were looking for someone whose life says that." 
 
 Several cardinals suggested that Bergoglio, who hews to conservative church doctrine, was theologically unimpeachable while also able to reach out to the developing world, parts of which are the only regions where Catholicism is growing. Born to Italian immigrant parents and raised in Argentina, he is seen as a pastoral teacher who can inspire action without browbeating. 
 
 "He can bring unity," Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels said at a news conference. "He comes from a different continent and so he comes with positive baggage to be able to do that. He won't be a pope above the people, but with them." 
 
 Danneels, generally considered among the more progressive of the cardinals, could barely contain his delight at the election of Bergoglio. He was not known as a supporter of the hard-line Joseph Ratzinger, who became Benedict, and seemed to welcome what he sees as a shift. He especially praised that speech during the congregations when Bergoglio urged reform of the Curia. 
 
 Similarly, Bergoglio is believed to have won the support of many of the 11 U.S. cardinals, among them Mahony, who said he was "ecstatic" at having a Latin American pope, "a great gift." 
 
 The Belgian cleric accompanied the new pope on the St. Peter's balcony Wednesday night and asked him how he felt. He pledged his service to God, saying he accepted what God had planned for him. 
 
 "But I can imagine later he burst into tears when he realized what awaited him," Danneels said. "It is a superhuman task." 
 
 wilkinson@latimes.com 
 
 Times staff writer Janet Stobart contributed to this report. ||||| VATICAN CITY—It took Jorge Mario Bergoglio four minutes to convince fellow cardinals he was their leader. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Associated Press Cardinal Bergoglio, right, with Canada's Cardinal Ouellet on March 6. 
 
 Speaking in the Paul VI grand hall of the Vatican, the Argentine cardinal warned the Catholic Church against focusing too much on matters close to home—advice that came against the backdrop of a papacy that had been consumed by infighting among Vatican officials, a dwindling flock in Europe and secular trends in the West. 
 
 The 76-year-old Father Jorge, as he is known back home, said Roman Catholicism needed to shift its focus outward, to the world beyond Rome—rather than being "self-referential," he said. Its core mission was humility, dignity and justice. It should help the poor. 
 
 It was a week before the secret conclave to elect the new pontiff would begin. But the speech sowed the seeds of one of Catholicism's boldest moves—the election of a pope from the New World, a man likely to steer the church's focus toward social justice and the problems of the world's periphery, rather than on the intrigue and controversy of its central administration. 
 
 What's News: The Vatican speaks out about allegations against Pope Francis. Inventors rushing to get patent applications filed before new changes go into effect. Carnival Corp announces plans to spend $800 million to get its fleet in ship shape. Photo: AP 
 
 This account, based on interviews with four cardinals, lifts the curtain on the dynamic that led the church's highest officials to shun the European basin from which Catholicism has drawn most of its leaders. Just before his speech, at a dinner of English-speaking cardinals, the future pope's name had come up over a meal of soup and wine but hadn't generated a buzz. "The speech was decisive," said one voting European cardinal. 
 
 "He spoke of the need for catechesis and the need to address the poor…the question of justice and the dignity of the human person," said a voting U.S. cardinal. 
 
 The call to project the church outward, not inward, propelled the Argentine prelate into contention in the first round of voting with two of Catholicism's most prominent cardinals. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Reuters A puff of smoke announced the Argentinian's selection as pope. 
 
 The other two—Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan and Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, head of the Vatican's office for appointing bishops—were longtime acolytes of Benedict XVI, giving them what many cardinals thought was an inside track to the papacy. By the fifth and decisive round, Cardinal Bergoglio had surpassed both. 
 
 The election of Cardinal Bergoglio, known now as Pope Francis, doesn't mean the church will change its doctrine. Pope Francis is expected to uphold church teachings, ranging from its opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage to its requirement of priestly celibacy. But he is likely to create a new narrative for the church, one less focused on the inner workings of the Vatican and more on social justice. 
 
 "Sometimes when you're dealing with a crisis, you kick the ball in a different direction. And that's what this pope has done. It's to say: What I stand for is a particular gospel way of life and witness," British Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, archbishop emeritus of Westminster, said in an interview. 
 
 Benedict's resignation on Feb. 28 opened the door to a flurry of unusually frank discussions among cardinals in the week that followed. Unlike the conclave that followed Pope John Paul II's death in 2005, cardinals didn't spend time in mourning. Instead, their deliberations could turn immediately to the biggest challenges facing the church—the rise of secular trends, management of the scandal-plagued Vatican bank and the need to address a shift Catholicism's demographics toward the southern hemisphere. 
 
 After hours, the cardinals met in private to home in on candidates. On March 5, after they had spent the day in the talks known as the General Congregation, a group of them from around the English-speaking world gathered inside North American College, a school nestled on a hill above the Vatican, where U.S. bishops send seminarians to train for the priesthood. A banquet table was set up beneath a chandelier inside the Red Room, which is trimmed with red marble pilasters and oil canvases depicting cardinals. 
 
 Sitting down to saucers of soup, the cardinals discussed "five or six" names of papal candidates, said one U.S. cardinal. That roster included two of the names that were most frequently being mentioned by the media: Cardinal Ouellet, a former Archbishop of Quebec, and Cardinal Scola of Milan. The future pope's name was also dropped into the conversation, the U.S. cardinal said. 
 
 A spokesman for Cardinal Scola declined to comment. Reached by phone Friday evening, Cardinal Ouellet said, "I have nothing to say about the conclave. I have a very serious oath about what was going on inside." A Vatican spokesman declined to comment on conclave proceedings. 
 
 Cardinal O'Connor, who was among the invitees of the dinner, declined to say who first mentioned Cardinal Bergoglio as a papal candidate. But he added: "His name began to be thrown into the ring: Maybe this is the man?" 
 
 Many cardinals initially believed Cardinal Bergoglio, 76, was probably too old to become pope, especially coming in the wake of Benedict XVI, who cited his age and frailty as reasons for his resignation. "We came into this whole process thinking: The next pope has to be vigorous and therefore probably younger. So there you have a man who isn't young. He's 76 years old. The question is does he still have vigor?" said Cardinal Francis George of Chicago. 
 
 American cardinals are heavily courted for support in papal elections. As a potential bloc of votes inside the conclave, the Americans are "very powerful" because they are outnumbered only by cardinals from Italy, Cardinal O'Connor said. 
 
 American cardinals also run archdioceses that are among the biggest donors to the Catholic church and to the papacy. Another asset that would have worked in the U.S. cardinals' favor is a lack of unity among Italians that has manifested itself in past conclaves, said the U.S. cardinal. 
 
 But as evening wore on, and glasses of red and white wine began to flow, it became clear that this time, the Americans, too, fostered diverging views. "I thought the American cardinals were quite divided about where to go," said Cardinal O'Connor, who didn't enter the conclave because he is above the voting-age limit of 80 years. 
 
 "Americans are particularly rugged individualists. We get along, but we all have our own point of view," the U.S. cardinal said. 
 
 Cardinal George of Chicago said he couldn't remember the evening but said it was "entirely possible" that Cardinal Bergoglio came up in conversations over a meal at the college. "Every night it's something different. So there are different conversations going on," the cardinal said in an interview in the Red Room on Friday. He declined to discuss the conclave. 
 
 Later that week, it was Cardinal Bergoglio's time to address his peers. Unlike the speeches before him, the Argentine kept his address short—less than four minutes, several cardinals said. That got him noticed. 
 
 It hadn't been the first time that Cardinal Bergoglio had mentioned the inward-looking nature of the church. 
 
 "We have to avoid the spiritual sickness of self-referential church," the cardinal said in an interview to an Italian journalist last year. "It's true that when you get out into the street, as happens to every man and woman, there can be accidents. However, if the church remains closed in on itself, self-referential, it gets old. Between a church that suffers accidents in the street, and a church that's sick because it's self-referential, I have no doubts about preferring the former." 
 
 "He speaks in a very straightforward way. And so perhaps—more than the content—it was simply a reminder that here is someone who has authenticity in such a way that he's a wonderful witness to the discipleship," said Cardinal George about the speech. 
 
 On March 12, the cardinals filed into the Sistine Chapel and cut themselves from outside communication. In the first ballot that night, the cardinals who garnered significant votes were Cardinals Bergoglio, Scola and Ouellet. Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston also drew votes. Black smoke rose from the chapel's smokestack, signifying no choice had been made, and the cardinals adjourned for the day. 
 
 On Wednesday, Cardinal Scola's support began to erode. Though Italian, the Milan cardinal was struggling to draw support from his countrymen, one European cardinal said. That left Italian cardinals divided among a range of candidates, with some starting to coalesce around Cardinal Bergoglio. 
 
 Members of another potential voting bloc—"Ratzingerian" cardinals who are close to Benedict XVI—were also divided between cardinals Scola and Ouellet, both of whom have deep ties with the former pope and are considered theological and intellectual admirers of his. 
 
 By the final round of voting, the opposition blocs had dissolved, with many of its voters joining into to push Cardinal Bergoglio past the 77-vote threshold needed to become pope. 
 
 Corrections & Amplifications 
 
 An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of British Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor as Cormack Murphy O'Connor. 
 
 Write to Stacy Meichtry at stacy.meichtry@wsj.com 
 
 A version of this article appeared March 16, 2013, on page A6 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: With a Speech, Cardinal Set Path to Papacy.
– Insiders are beginning to open up about how they chose Jorge Bergoglio as the new pope. For one thing, he wasn't part of the Vatican's troubled Curia hierarchy, but it was believed he could help heal it, the New York Times reports. It also helped that he didn't stake out a high public profile and project himself as a candidate beforehand, which can backfire in the world of Vatican politics. "He is not part of the Italian system, but also at the same time, because of his culture and background, he was Italo-compatible," says the archbishop of Paris. "If there was a chance that someone could intervene with justice in this situation, he was the man who could do it best." Among the questions cardinals asked themselves: "'Is he a man of the faith who connects us to Christ?'" said Chicago's archbishop. "Next, 'Can he govern?'" Lastly, he won points for "the fact that he has a heart for the poor." Bergoglio's pre-vote speech to the private conclave helped his selection, the Los Angeles Times notes; he offered a succinct call for a streamlined church free of corruption. But his selection was by no means a foregone conclusion; indeed, Cardinal Angelo Scola, described as a favorite of reformers, received a mistaken email of congratulations from Italian bishops shortly after Bergoglio's selection. Bergoglio reportedly led after the first round of voting, with Scola and Canada's Marc Oullet behind him. He gradually built his lead in subsequent rounds until reaching the threshold of 77 votes.