. ’From Peru missionary to first American pontiff,’ what you need to know about the 267th pope
Robert Francis Prevost became the first pope from the United States on Thursday, picking the papal name Leo XIV after cardinals from around the world elected him leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
Tens of thousands of people packed in St Peter’s Square cheered as Prevost appeared on the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica, waving with both hands, smiling and bowing.
“Peace by with you,” he told the crowds.
White smoke from the Sistine Chapel had billowed into the sky on the cardinals’ second day of voting to announce his election in a secret conclave, while the bells of St Peter’s Basilica and churches across Rome rang out.
Crowds of people rushed towards the square to watch the balcony of the basilica, which has been fitted out with red curtains for the first address to the world by the 267th pope.
Meet Prevost
Prevost has spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru and became a cardinal only in 2023. He has given few media interviews and is a relative unknown on the global stage.
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As a result, Prevost enjoyed a prominence going into the conclave that few other cardinals had.
One strike against him, however, was his nationality. There has long been a taboo against a US pope, given the geopolitical power already wielded by the United States in the secular sphere.
But Prevost, a Chicago native, is also a Peruvian citizen. Italian newspaper La Repubblica called him “the least American of the Americans” for his soft-spoken touch.
Prevost was also twice elected prior general, or top leader, of the Augustinian religious order, founded in the 13th century by St. Augustine. The order operates in 50 countries and has a special focus on a life of community and equality among its members.
Francis clearly had an eye on him for years, moving him from the Augustinian leadership back to Peru in 2014 to serve as the administrator and later archbishop of Chiclayo.
He remained in that position, acquiring Peruvian citizenship in 2015, until the late pontiff brought him to Rome in 2023 to assume the presidency of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.
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