Robert Francis Prevost — who has chosen the papal name Leo XIV — might not be the Latin American Jesuit wildcard that his predecessor, Pope Francis, was, but his election is similarly historic.
In the figure of the 69-year-old former head of the Augustinian order, the Roman Catholic church has its very first US leader. Until Thursday evening, the idea of the fisherman’s ring being slipped onto a North American hand was seen as a fairly distant possibility.
The Vatican’s longstanding opposition to a US pope stemmed largely from the optics of having a pontiff from a political superpower and a country with such a hegemonic cultural and secular global influence.
Photo: Reuters
However, all that changed after a short conclave that chose a man who had been a cardinal for only a little more than two years. While his appointment is likely to be welcomed by progressive factions within the church, it was probably not the news that some of his more conservative, US President Donald Trump-aligned US brother cardinals had been hoping for.
Despite being born in Chicago on Sept. 14, 1955, Prevost has never been a typical US Catholic cleric — not least because he also holds Peruvian citizenship. After giving his solemn vows in 1981 and studying in Rome, he was sent to a mission in Peru.
He spent many years there as judicial vicar and as a professor of canon, patristic and moral law at a seminary in Peru’s third city, Trujillo, before being appointed bishop of another northern city, Chiclayo, in November 2014.
Those who know him from his time in Peru — where the church has often been beset by tensions between left-wing proponents of liberation theology and uber-traditionalist Catholics — recall a calm and grounded leader who would sit down to breakfast with his fellow priests after morning prayers.
“No matter how many problems he has, he maintains good humor and joy,” said Reverend Fidel Purisaca Vigil, communications director for Prevost’s old diocese in Chiclayo.
Prevost acquired a reputation over the years as a hard-working and “moderating influence” among Peru’s ideologically disparate bishops, a talent that would prove invaluable during his papacy, a recent profile in Catholic news outlet Crux said.
In January 2023, Francis, who himself had to manage competing theological strains during his time as leader of the Jesuits in the turbulent, violent and oppressive Argentina of the 1970s, made Prevost a cardinal.
Until Thursday evening, Prevost’s most high-profile Vatican roles had been as president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, which oversees the selection of new bishops from around the world.
His strong connection to Latin America, combined with his more recent roles at the top of the church, might have gone a long way in endearing him to those who would not usually countenance the idea of an American pope.
Prevost’s recent CV also makes clear his proximity to Francis, and he would doubtless be seen by many as a surprise, if welcome, kind of continuity candidate.
Trump, who hailed the appointment, calling the arrival of the first American pope “a great honor for our country,” seldom saw eye-to-eye with Francis. The late pope was forthright in his criticism of Trump’s border and immigration policies, not least his desire to wall off Mexico.
“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian,” Francis said in February 2016. “This is not the gospel.”
The blunt rebuke did not land well with Trump. “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful,” he said. “No leader, especially a religious leader, has the right to question another man’s religion or faith.”
Whether Trump is right to be looking forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV — “it will be a very meaningful moment!” — would depend on the degree to which the new bishop of Rome emulates his predecessor.
Toward the beginning of his widely admired papacy, Francis insisted that the church should not be remote, nor cloistered, nor complacent in its relationship with the world.
“‘Mere administration’ can no longer be enough,” he said. “Throughout the world, let us be ‘permanently in a state of mission.’”
Francis was adamant that the church he led for 12 years would be a church for “todos, todos, todos” (everyone, everyone, everyone in Spanish and Portuguese).
He also said he preferred a church “which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.”
More than a decade on, the streets — from Gaza and Ukraine to Sudan and Kashmir — have only become more bloody and more violent. As he addressed the world from the loggia of St Peter’s Basilica on Thursday, Pope Leo XIV’s first words were: “Peace be with you.”
His subsequent message, stressing the importance of peace, dialogue and missionary evangelization, befitted the former leader of a mendicant order dedicated to poverty, service and pastoral work.
However, in his plea for peace to “enter your hearts, to reach your families and all people, wherever they are,” perhaps there was also more than a trace of his much-loved and much-missed predecessor.
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