On May 8, white smoke came out of the chimney of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, announcing that the Conclave had concluded and the 133 cardinals had selected a new pope following the death of Pope Francis on April 21. Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost was announced as the new head of the Catholic Church. On May 9, he held his first Mass as pontiff at the Sistine Chapel.
Prevost is the 267th pope of the Catholic Church, and he made history as the first pope from the United States.
Prevost was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1955, and he grew up in Dolton, a suburban town just south of the city with his two brothers, John and Louis.
Prevost attended Villanova University and graduated in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics. He also has a Master’s degree in Divinity from the Catholic Theological Union and a Doctorate in Canon Law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Prevost was ordained as a priest in 1982 in Rome, and he served in Peru for 20 years, initially as a missionary when he first went there in 1985, and eventually returned to Peru many years later and was appointed as the Bishop of Chiclayo in 2014 and served in that role from 2015 to 2023, when he was then called to Rome by Pope Francis and was made a cardinal.
Pope Leo XIV speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and a little bit of German, and also holds citizenship in Peru due to his time there as a missionary and bishop.
Pope Leo XIV holds similar views to those of the late Pope Francis, who was a longtime friend of his.
According to NPR, Pope Leo, who considers himself to be a centrist and whose brother, John, told news sources that he would is “not real far left and..not real far right..,” holds the following views: opposes the idea of ordaining female deacons, but supports ideas of increasing women’s participation and visibility within the Vatican and appointing women to leadership roles, condemned the ‘homosexual lifestyle’ in a speech in 2012–and is said to follow the more ‘traditional’ Catholic teachings that negatively view the LGBTQ+ community, spoken out about the need to tackle climate change, and has been critical of some of U.S. President Donald Trump’s actions in his tweets on X, formerly Twitter.
After 12 years of Pope Francis’ term in the papacy, the Roman Catholic community is interested to see how Pope Leo’s actions will differ from those of his predecessor.
