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By Nicole Winfield and Vanessa Gera
Follow our live blog coverage of Pope Leo XIV’s election
Vatican City: Catholic cardinals broke with tradition when they elected the first US pope, making Chicago-born missionary Robert Prevost the 267th pontiff to lead the Catholic Church in a moment of global turmoil and conflict.
Prevost, a 69-year-old member of the Augustinian religious order who spent his career ministering in Peru, took the name Leo XIV.
In 2023, newly elected Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost received his biretta from Pope Francis at the Vatican.Credit: AP
In his first words as Pope Francis’ successor, uttered from the loggia of St Peter’s Basilica, Leo said, “Peace be with you,” and emphasised a message of “a disarmed and disarming peace” dialogue and missionary evangelisation.
He wore the traditional red cape and trappings of the papacy – a cape that Francis had eschewed on his election in 2013 – suggesting a return to some degree of tradition after Francis’ unorthodox pontificate.
But in naming himself Leo, the new pope could also have wanted to signal a strong line of continuity: Brother Leo was the 13th-century friar who was a great companion to St Francis of Assisi, the late pope’s namesake.
Prevost had been a leading candidate for the papacy, but there had long been a taboo against a US pope, given the geopolitical power the country already wields.
But Prevost was seemingly eligible because he’s also a Peruvian citizen and had lived for years in Peru, first as a missionary and then as an archbishop, and cardinals may have thought the 21st century world order could handle a US-born pope.
Francis, history’s first Latin American pope, clearly had his eye on Prevost and in many ways saw him as his heir apparent.
He sent Prevost to take over a complicated diocese in Peru, then brought him to the Vatican in 2023 to serve as the powerful head of the office that vets bishop nominations from around the world, one of the most important jobs in the Catholic Church.
Cardinal Robert Prevost appears on the central loggia of St Peter’s Basilica after being chosen the 267th pontiff of the Catholic Church, choosing the name Pope Leo XIV.Credit: AP
And in January, Francis elevated Prevost into the senior ranks of cardinals, giving him prominence going into the conclave that few other cardinals had.
Since arriving in Rome, Prevost has kept a low public profile but was well-known to the men who count.
Significantly, he presided over one of the most revolutionary reforms Francis made, when he added three women to the voting bloc that decides which bishop nominations to forward to the pope.
Vatican watchers said Prevost’s decision to name himself Leo was particularly significant, given the previous Leo’s legacy of social justice and reform, suggesting continuity with some of Francis’ chief concerns.
During his 12-year papacy, Francis sought to remake the US hierarchy and, with Prevost’s help starting in 2023, named more pastorally minded bishops to replace culture warriors favoured by Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II.
The new Pope was formerly the prior general, or leader, of the Order of St Augustine, which was formed in the 13th century as a community of “mendicant” friars — dedicated to poverty, service and evangelisation. There have been six previous Augustinian popes.
Francis moved Prevost from the Augustinian leadership back to Peru in 2014 to serve as the administrator and later archbishop of Chiclayo.
The Rev. Alexander Lam, an Augustinian friar from Peru who knows the new pope, said he was beloved in Peru for his closeness to his people, especially poor people. He said he was a champion of social justice issues and environmental stewardship.
Cardinal Robert Prevost leads the recitation of the Holy Rosary for Pope Francis’ health in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican in March.Credit: AP
“Even the bishops of Peru called him the saint, the Saint of the North, and he had time for everyone,” Lam said in an interview with The Associated Press in Rome. “He was the person who would find you along the way. He was this kind of bishop.”
Lam said that when Francis travelled to Peru in 2018, Prevost camped out with his flock on the ground during the vigil before Francis’ Mass. “Roberto has that style, that closeness. Maybe they are not great institutional gestures, but are in human gestures.”
Prevost remained in that position, acquiring Peruvian citizenship in 2015, until Francis brought him to Rome in 2023 to assume both the bishops’ dossier and the presidency of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.
In that job, he would have kept in regular contact with the Catholic hierarchy in the part of the world that counts the most Catholics. Counting North, Central and South America, the region had 37 cardinal electors going into the conclave.
In Rome, at the Augustinian headquarters just off St. Peter’s Square, the mood was festive.
The Rev. Franz Klein, treasurer general of the Augustinian order, said he was shocked by the news.
“For us, the Augustinian order, this is one of the biggest moments in history,” he said. “I’m surprised and very happy.”
The New York Times reported that Prevost has often been described as reserved and discreet and that his supporters believed he would as pope continue the consultative process started by Francis to invite laypeople to meet with bishops.
It also wrote that it was unclear whether he would be as open to LGBTQ Catholics as Francis was. In 2012 comments, he lamented that Western news media and popular culture fostered “sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel”, citing the “homosexual lifestyle” and “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children.”
However, he has pushed back “militant vision of Christian power that the Trump administration has elevated”, the Times wrote. Before he became pope, a social media account under his name shared criticisms of the Trump administration’s positions on immigration.
Like many other leaders of the Catholic Church leaders, he has also drawn criticism over his dealings with priests accused of sexual abuse, the Times reported.
Leo was expected to celebrate Mass with cardinals in the Sistine Chapel on Friday, planned to deliver his first Sunday noon blessing from the loggia of St Peter’s and lined up an audience with the media on Monday in the Vatican auditorium, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said.
Cardinal Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, in 2023.Credit: AP
Beyond that, he has a possible first foreign trip at the end of May: Francis had been invited to travel to Turkey to commemorate the 1700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, a landmark event in Christian history and an important moment in Catholic-Orthodox relations.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, welcomed Leo’s election and said he hoped he would join the anniversary celebration.
