The conclave of the College of Cardinals has elected Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, 69, as Pope Leo XIV. Cardinal Prevost was born in the U.S. He was chosen from a shortlist of candidates that represented Catholics from around the globe.
In a speech given from St. Peter’s Basilica, the new pope greeted the crowd with a “Peace be with you” and discussed how God loves everyone unconditionally. He also talked about building bridges with dialogue.
“Thank you, Pope Francis,” he said.
The new pope was born in Chicago, educated at Villanova University, and became a member of the Order of St. Augustine, also known as the Augustinians. He also holds a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.
He was elected prior general of the Augustinians heading the religious order from 2001 to 2013. He also served as bishop of Chiclayo in Peru from 2015 to 2023. The new pope has served in a variety of leadership roles throughout the Catholic Church in addition to his pastoral ministry, including as a seminary teacher and administrator. He was made a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2023.
He will succeed Pope Francis, who died on April 21 at age 88 and was himself elected following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI in 2013 due to frail health. The news broke on Thursday evening in Rome, when white smoke was spotted rising above the Sistine Chapel, the traditional way of signaling the election of a new pope.
The pope was chosen on the second day of voting. The selection process took about the same length of time as the conclave in 2013, which also lasted two days.
Pope Leo XIV will assume leadership over more than 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide. He will also preside over a church that is the largest nongovernmental provider of health care in the world, managing a quarter of the world’s health care facilities. Additionally, he will have influence over dozens of Catholic universities and countless other Catholic schools.
The New York Times reported that “[i]n a 2012 address to bishops, [Prevost] lamented that Western news media and popular culture fostered ‘sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the gospel.’ He cited the ‘homosexual lifestyle’ and ‘alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children.’”
The Times also reported:
As bishop in Chiclayo, a city in northwestern Peru, he opposed a government plan to add teachings on gender in schools. ‘The promotion of gender ideology is confusing, because it seeks to create genders that don’t exist,’ he told local news media.
The profile of American Catholics has risen in particular in recent years with the election in November of Catholic convert JD Vance as vice president and the creation of a Catholic majority of justices on the Supreme Court.
A variety of Catholics reacted to the election. Chad Pecknold, a professor of systematic theology at the Catholic University of America, told The Daily Signal, “We have the first American pope in Christian history at a time of great American resurgence.”
“The fact that Robert Prevost is a son of Saint Augustine is a hopeful sign to me personally. The fact that he’s chosen to follow in the footsteps of Pope Leo XIII suggests that he wants to teach with Leonine clarity and build bridges with Leonine diplomacy at a time when the world needs strong Christian leadership.”
The longtime LGBTQ+ advocate Father James Martin also had kind words to say about the new pope.
In a 2023 interview, Prevost discussed his views on how bishops should lead.
“A fundamental element of the portrait of a bishop is being a pastor, capable of being close to the members of the community, starting with the priests for whom the bishop is father and brother. To live this closeness to all, without excluding anyone,” he told Vatican News.
He continued:
Pope Francis has spoken of four types of closeness: closeness to God, to brother bishops, to priests, and to all God’s people. One must not give in to the temptation to live isolated, separated in a palace, satisfied with a certain social level or a certain level within the Church.
And we must not hide behind an idea of authority that no longer makes sense today. The authority we have is to serve, to accompany priests, to be pastors and teachers.
We are often preoccupied with teaching doctrine, the way of living our faith, but we risk forgetting that our first task is to teach what it means to know Jesus Christ and to bear witness to our closeness to the Lord. This comes first: to communicate the beauty of the faith, the beauty and joy of knowing Jesus. It means that we ourselves are living it and sharing this experience.
This is breaking news and this article will be updated.
