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- On Thursday, 133 cardinals elected a new pope.
- Cardinal Robert Prevost will be known as Pope Leo XIV.
- Hailing from Chicago, he’s the first pope from the US.
On May 8, white smoke emerged from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney, indicating the College of Cardinals had elected a new pope.
Cardinal Robert Prevost, from Chicago, was then introduced as Pope Leo XIV.
He’s the first pope from the US and the 267th pope overall.
Here’s what you need to know about Pope Leo XIV.
Robert Prevost was born in Chicago in 1955.
He’s 69 years old and moved to Peru as a child, the BBC reported.
He’s also a citizen of Peru, where he served as Archbishop of Chiclayo. He was 27 when he became ordained in 1982, The New York Times reported.
The new pope has a doctorate and is multilingual.
He studied at Villanova University and the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago. In 1987, he received his doctor of canon law degree from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas.
Pope Leo XIV speaks English, Spanish, and Italian.
Pope Francis appointed him to an important position.
In 2023, the then-pope appointed Cardinal Prevost to the role of prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops in Latin America, which oversees bishop nominations all over the world, the AP reported.
In 2024, Pope Leo said in an interview with Vatican News that a “bishop is not supposed to be a little prince sitting in his kingdom, but rather called authentically to be humble, to be close to the people he serves, to walk with them and to suffer with them.”
A group of 133 cardinals elected him.
The process is known as the conclave. It took two days and four rounds of voting for the cardinals to agree on a new pope, per the AP.
Earlier this week, the National Catholic Reporter wrote that it was unlikely the US cardinal would become pope because of political implications. Yet Cardinal Prevost was considered a contender by others, especially as the week went on, ABC News reported.
The new pope gave his first message Thursday.
Speaking from St. Peter’s Basilica balcony, Pope Leo XIV said, “Peace be with all you” in his first words in his new role. He spoke in Italian and then Spanish.
Some believe the new pope will continue his long commitment to helping poor communities and immigrants, following a similar course to his predecessor, Pope Francis, per Slate.
“My experience of Cardinal Prevost was that he’s not a showboat,” Father Mark R. Francis, who worked with Pope Leo in the past, recently told CBS News. “He’s very calm, but extremely intelligent, and extremely compassionate.”
In February, he posted a story from The National Catholic Reporter on X with the headline “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
