Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost Elected as First American to be Pope,

Last updated: 2025/05/08 at 6:07 PM

Democracy Newsline 1 year ago

U.S.-born Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops under Pope Francis, leaves the Vatican Synod Hall April 22, 2025, after the first general congregation of the College of Cardinals. Cardinal Fabio Baggio, undersecretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, walks out behind him. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost of the United States has been elected the 267th pope and will soon step onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica as the new leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. Prevost, 69, from Chicago, Illinois, is the first ever pope from the United States. He will be known as Leo XIV.
A leader with global experience, he spent much of his career as a missionary in South America and most recently led a powerful Vatican office for bishop appointments. He is expected to build on Pope Francis’ reforms.
He worked for a decade in Trujillo, Peru, and was later appointed bishop of Chiclayo, another Peruvian city, where he served from 2014 to 2023. Prevost also holds a Peruvian passport and has been a Peruvian citizen since 2015.
In an interview with Vatican News shortly after he became the leader of the Dicastery for Bishops, Prevost said: “I still consider myself a missionary. My vocation, like that of every Christian, is to be a missionary, to proclaim the Gospel wherever one is.”