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.”
American Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was on Thursday named Pope #LeoXIV, making him the 267th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄
• 𝑭𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝑨𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒑𝒐𝒑𝒆: The new pope has been revealed as Robert Prevost of the US, the first American pontiff in history. He’ll be known as Pope Leo XIV. This comes after white smoke billowed above the Sistine Chapel, the signal that cardinals had selected a new pontiff on the second day of the conclave.
• 𝑨𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒑𝒐𝒑𝒆: Prevost, age 69, from Chicago, Illinois, is a leader with global experience, he spent much of his career as a missionary in South America and served as bishop in Peru. He most recently led a powerful Vatican office for bishop appointments. He is expected to build on Pope Francis’ reforms.
• 𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒕 𝒕𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝒕𝒐 𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒅: There were 133 voting cardinals, who had all been sequestered inside the Vatican during the conclave. Any one of them needed two-thirds of the vote to become the next pope.