Pope Leo XIV is the first pope from the United States.
Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, the Chicago-born prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops under Pope Francis, was elected the 267th pope May 8 and took the name Pope Leo XIV.
He is the first North American to be elected pope and, before the conclave, was the U.S. cardinal most mentioned as a potential successor of St. Peter.
The white smoke poured from the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel at 6:07 p.m. Rome time (11:07 a.m. St. Louis time) and a few minutes later the bells of St. Peter’s Basilica began to ring.
A longtime missionary in Peru, the 69-year-old pope holds both U.S. and Peruvian citizenship.
As prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops for the past two years, he was instrumental in helping Pope Francis choose bishops for many Latin-rite dioceses. He met hundreds of bishops during their “ad limina” visits to Rome and was called to assist the world’s Latin-rite bishops “in all matters concerning the correct and fruitful exercise of the pastoral office entrusted to them.”
Cardinal Robert F. Prevost placed his hand on the Book of Gospels in the Sistine Chapel to make his oath of perpetual secrecy before the conclave to elect a new pope begins at the Vatican May 7. Cardinal Prevost was elected pope May 8, taking the name Pope Leo XIV.
The new pope was serving as bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, when Pope Francis called him to the Vatican in January 2023.
During a talk at St. Jude Parish in Chicago in August, the then-cardinal said Pope Francis nominated him “specifically because he did not want someone from the Roman Curia to take on this role. He wanted a missionary; he wanted someone from outside; he wanted someone who would come in with a different perspective.”
As prefect of the dicastery, then-Cardinal Prevost also served as president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, where nearly 40% of the world’s Catholics reside.
A Chicago native, he also served as prior general of the Augustinians and spent more than two decades serving in Peru, first as an Augustinian missionary and later as bishop of Chiclayo.
Soon after coming to Rome to head the dicastery, he told Vatican News that bishops have a special mission of promoting the unity of the Church.
“The lack of unity is a wound that the Church suffers, a very painful one,” he said in May 2023. “Divisions and polemics in the Church do not help anything. We bishops especially must accelerate this movement toward unity, toward communion in the Church.”
White smoke billowed from the chimney of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel May 8, indicating a new pope has been elected.
Former Cardinal Prevost was born Sept. 14, 1955, in Chicago, Illinois. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the Augustinian-run Villanova University in Pennsylvania and joined the order in 1977, making his solemn vows in 1981. He holds a degree in theology from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.
He joined the Augustinian mission in Peru in 1985 and largely worked in the country until 1999 when he was elected head of the Augustinians’ Chicago-based province. From 2001 to 2013, he served as prior general of the worldwide order. In 2014, Pope Francis named him bishop of Chiclayo, in northern Peru, and the pope asked him also to be apostolic administrator of Callao, Peru, from April 2020 to May 2021.
Pope Leo XIV speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and can read Latin and German.
This is a breaking story, it will be updated.
