Robert Francis Prevost becomes the first US Pope as Leo XIV

The College of Cardinals today elected a new successor to Saint Peter as head of the Catholic Church, with a major development.

For the first time, the Catholic Church will be headed by a Pope born in the United States, specifically in Chicago. The person chosen by the cardinals was Robert Francis Prevost Martinez, currently Bishop of Albano, Italy, and of Spanish origin on the side of his mother, Mildred Martinez. Leo XIV is 69 years old (born on September 14, 1955) and belongs to the Order of Saint Augustine. He holds a degree in Mathematics from Villanova University (in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).

In his first speech, he repeated one word a lot: "peace." He delivered most of his message in Italian, but he also said a few words in Spanish, as he was a missionary in Chulucanas and bishop of Chiclayo, Peru (in fact, he has Peruvian nationality) and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

Below are some biographical details of the new Pope published by Vatican News:

The new Bishop of Rome has chosen the name Leo XIV. He was born on September 14, 1955, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Louis Marius Prevost, of French and Italian origins, and Mildred Martínez, of Spanish origins. He has two brothers, Louis Martín and John Joseph.

He spent his childhood and adolescence in the United States, studying first at the minor seminary of the Augustinian Fathers and then at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, where he earned a degree in Mathematics and studied Philosophy in 1977. On September 1 of the same year, he entered the novitiate of the Order of Saint Augustine (OSA) in the Province of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Chicago, and made his first profession on September 2, 1978. On August 29, 1981, he pronounced his solemn vows.

He received his education at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, graduating in Theology. At the age of 27, his superiors sent him to Rome to study Canon Law at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum). In Rome, he was ordained a priest on June 19, 1982, at the Augustinian College of Saint Monica by Monsignor Jean Jadot, pro-president of the Pontifical Council for Non-Christians, now the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue.

Prevost earned his licentiate in 1984, and the following year, while preparing his doctoral thesis, he was sent to the Augustinian mission of Chulucanas, Piura, Peru (1985-1986). In 1987, he presented his doctoral thesis on "The Role of the Local Prior of the Order of Saint Augustine" and was appointed director of vocations and director of missions for the Augustinian Province of "Mother of Good Counsel" in Olympia Fields, Illinois.

The following year, he arrived at the mission of Trujillo, still in Peru, as director of the joint formation project for Augustinian aspirants from the vicariates of Chulucanas, Iquitos, and Apurímac. For eleven years he held the positions of prior of the community (1988-1992), director of formation (1988-1998) and master of professed (1992-1998) and in the archdiocese of Trujillo as judicial vicar (1989-1998) and professor of Canon Law, Patristics and Morals at the major seminary "San Carlos y San Marcelo". At the same time he was also entrusted with the pastoral care of Our Lady Mother of the Church, later erected into a parish with the title of Santa Rita (1988-1999), on the poor outskirts of the city, and he was parish administrator of Our Lady of Montserrat from 1992 to 1999.

In 1999, he was elected Prior Provincial of the Augustinian Province of Mother of Good Counsel in Chicago. Two and a half years later, at the Ordinary General Chapter of the Order of Saint Augustine, his brothers elected him Prior General, confirming him for a second term in 2007.

In October 2013, he returned to his Augustinian Province in Chicago and served as Director of Formation at the Convent of Saint Augustine, First Councilor, and Provincial Vicar. These positions he held until Pope Francis appointed him, on November 3, 2014, Apostolic Administrator of the Peruvian Diocese of Chiclayo and concurrently Titular Bishop of Sufar. He entered the diocese on November 7th, in the presence of Apostolic Nuncio James Patrick Green, who ordained him bishop just over a month later, on December 12th, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, at St. Mary's Cathedral.

His episcopal motto is "In Illo uno unum," words that St. Augustine spoke in a sermon, the Exposition of Psalm 127, to explain that "although we Christians are many, in one Christ we are one."

On September 26, 2015, he was appointed Bishop of Chiclayo by the Argentine Pope, and in March 2018, he was elected Second Vice President of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference, within which he is also a member of the Economic Council and President of the Commission for Culture and Education.

In 2019, Francis included him among the members of the Congregation for the Clergy and the following year among those of the Congregation for Bishops. In the same year, on April 15, 2020, he was also appointed apostolic administrator of the Peruvian diocese of Callao.

On January 30, 2023, the Pope called him to Rome as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, promoting him to archbishop. And in the Consistory of September 30 of the same year, he created and proclaimed him cardinal, assigning him the deaconry of Santa Monica. Prevost took office on January 28, 2024, and, as head of the dicastery, participated in the last apostolic journeys of Pope Francis and in the first and second sessions of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on synodality, held in Rome respectively from October 4 to 29, 2023, and from October 2 to 27, 2024. An experience in synodal assemblies already acquired in the past as prior of the Augustinians and representative of the Union of Superiors General (USG).

Meanwhile, on October 4, 2023, Francis included him among the members of the Dicasteries for Evangelization, Section for First Evangelization and New Particular Churches; for the Doctrine of the Faith; for the Eastern Churches; for the Clergy; for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life; for Culture and Education; for Legislative Texts; and of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State.

On February 6 of this year, he was promoted to the order of bishops by the Argentine Pontiff, obtaining the title of Suburbicarian Church of Albano.

Three days later, on February 9, he celebrated Mass in St. Peter's Square—presided over by Bergoglio—for the Jubilee of the Armed Forces, the second major event of the Holy Year of Hope.

During his predecessor's final stay at the Gemelli Polyclinic, Prevost presided over the rosary for Francis' health in St. Peter's Square on March 3.

Regarding the new Bishop of Rome, Motoko Rich wrote the following in The New York Times on May 2:

As ideological camps tussle over whether to continue Pope Francis’ inclusive agenda or return to a conservative doctrinal path, supporters of Cardinal Prevost pitch him as a balanced alternative among the papabili, as likely candidates for the papacy are known.

The Rev. Michele Falcone, 46, a priest in the Order of St. Augustine previously led by Cardinal Prevost, described his mentor and friend as the “dignified middle of the road.”

The cardinal resembles Francis in his commitment to the poor and migrants and to meeting people where they are. He told the Vatican’s official news website last year that “the bishop is not supposed to be a little prince sitting in his kingdom.” Rather, he said, a church leader is “called authentically to be humble, to be close to the people he serves, to walk with them, to suffer with them.”

Regarding the choice of the name, I believe that Monsignor Prevost has taken as a reference Leo XIII, a great Pope born in 1810, elected Bishop of Rome in 1878 and died in 1903, a pontiff who preserved the doctrinal legacy of the Church and at the same time showed great social concern, reflected in his encyclical "Rerum novarum" (1891), in which he also stated: "this fantasy of socialism of reducing private property to common property must be rejected completely, because it harms those very people it is intended to help, it is repugnant to the natural rights of individuals and disrupts the functions of the State and the common peace."

Personally, he has made a good impression on me. I wish him good service at the head of the Church and will pray for him that God will help him in the titanic task that now lies ahead.