If you were alive and out of diapers in the late 1990s, you’ll remember The West Wing. Created by Aaron Sorkin, the series aired for seven seasons starting in 1999 and told the story of stalwart White House staffers solving problems for – and with – President Josiah Bartlet, the hard-nosed and idealistic commander-in-chief played by Martin Sheen.

There was an episode late in the first season – early in Bartlet’s first term – which saw the Bartlet administration flagging in the polls and floundering amidst a series of political and public relations setbacks. In the climactic scene, the gruff and grizzled chief-of-staff, Leo McGarry (played by the great John Spencer), scrawls on a legal pad the phrase: “Let Bartlet be Bartlet.”

That was the beginning of McGarry’s strategy for dealing with the unenviable – and inevitable – rough-and-tumble of Washington politics and global leadership.

I thought of that episode after listening to an insightful and thoroughly entertaining talk by New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan at Fairfield University (where this scribbler happens to teach at the Prep school) on Thursday evening.

An Evening with Timothy Cardinal Dolan: “Reflections on the Conclave and the New American Pope: Leo XIV” was presented by Fairfield University’s Office of Mission and Ministry and was part of a series organized to mark the 250^th anniversary of American independence: Fairfield University Explores 250 Years of the American Experiment: The Promise and Paradox.

Among the vignettes Dolan shared with his audience in the sold-out 740-seat main auditorium of the university’s Regina A. Quick Centre for the Arts, there was one of an early morning breakfast in the Domus Sanctae Marthae where cardinals were billeted during the conclave, to which Dolan brought his own peanut butter – having learned from hard experience – and found himself joined by a fellow American, Cardinal Robert Prevost.

“No doubt, he was attracted by the peanut butter,” Dolan drolly observed.

Dolan also told of how he was somewhat surprised by a question he heard during the early gatherings of cardinals – the general congregations – as they prepared for the conclave: “Who is Robert Prevost?”

That’s a question all of us are still asking, Dolan conceded, but suggested the cardinals who elected him Pope Leo XIV saw in him a fellow who would be “a successor, not a continuator,” of Pope Francis, for whom there was evident general admiration and affection.

Dolan delivered set piece remarks over the better part of an hour that provided ample historical context – the cardinal’s academic training is in Church history – and time fairly flew by, drawing some big laughs while offering keen observations. Dolan said John Paul II was the soul, Benedict XVI the brain, and Francis the heart of the Church, but Leo XIV he described as “temperate – not an organ, but a feature of the body.”

Dolan’s remarks were followed by a moderated conversation in which Jesuit Father Paul Rourke and Prof. Philip Klay of Fairfield University took part.

Other observations Dolan made were that the man who has become Leo XIV “wasn’t thought of as an American,” but the cardinals saw him as someone who possessed desirable qualities – common sense, practicality, good with money – often associated with Americans.

Dolan also noted something that had escaped me in the heady moment of Leo’s first appearance on the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica: Leo’s very American wave. I pulled news footage just to check, and sure enough, there was no regal stiffness, no arm cocked at the elbow, no palm turned in, but a hearty, palm-out, spread-fingered wave – and a great big smile – first with the right hand, then two-handed, then with the left.

I thought of that West Wing episode, I suppose, for two reasons.

One is that Pope Leo XIV is still in the “honeymoon” phase of his pontificate, but eventually he will begin to make hard decisions of government under the glare of intense public scrutiny. He will want to have a team – his team – in place to implement and execute his decisions.

There are going to be difficult moments, even missteps, and popes as well as presidents need people who will help them be their best selves, occasionally by telling them frankly when they need to be better.

The other is that the question, “Who is Leo XIV?” is one, the answer to which the pope himself is discovering along with us. The papal office changes every man who enters it (as does the presidential office in Leo’s native land).

Everybody could stand to be reminded of that, especially as the Vatican comes out of summer and gets back into the swing of business under a new principal.

Follow Chris Altieri on X: @craltieri