Let us welcome Pope Leo XIV and pray for him as he begins his journey as the new leader of the Catholic Church.
Robert Francis Cardinal Prevost, the Chicago-born prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops under the late Pope Francis, was elected the 267th pope on May 8 and took the name Pope Leo XIV.
- Pope Leo was born September 14, 1955 in Chicago, Illinois. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the Augustinian-run Villanova University in Pennsylvania and joined the order in 1977.
- He joined the Augustinian mission in Peru in 1985 and largely worked in the country until 1999 when he was elected head of the Augustinians’ Chicago-based province. From 2001 to 2013, he served as prior general of the worldwide order. In 2014, Pope Francis named him bishop of Chiclayo, in northern Peru, and the pope asked him also to be apostolic administrator of Callao, Peru from April 2020 to May 2021.
- He holds a degree in theology from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and a doctorate from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.
- The new pope speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and can read Latin and German.
In an interview in 2023 with Vatican News, then-Cardinal Prevost spoke about the essential leadership quality of a bishop.
“Pope Francis has spoken of four types of closeness: closeness to God, to brother bishops, to priests and to all God’s people,” he said. “One must not give in to the temptation to live isolated, separated in a palace, satisfied with a certain social level or a certain level within the church.”
“And we must not hide behind an idea of authority that no longer makes sense today,” he said. “The authority we have is to serve, to accompany priests, to be pastors and teachers.”