Cardinal Robert Prevost, a missionary who spent his profession ministering in Peru and leads the Vatican’s highly effective workplace of bishops, was elected the primary American pope within the 2,000-year historical past of the Catholic Church.
Listed below are some enjoyable info in regards to the 69-year-old Prevost, who took the identify Leo XIV.
Date of Delivery: Sept. 14, 1955
Newly elected Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, receives his biretta from Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Sq. at The Vatican, Sept. 30, 2023.
AP Picture/Riccardo De Luca, file
Nationality: American and Peruvian
Place: Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops; president of the Pontifical Fee for Latin America beneath Francis
Expertise: Archbishop of Chiclayo, Peru; head of the Augustinian non secular order
Made a cardinal by: Francis
Alma mater: Prevost graduated from Villanova College with a Bachelor of Science diploma in arithmetic in 1977
Francis introduced Prevost to the Vatican in 2023 to function the highly effective head of the workplace that vets bishop nominations from around the globe, one of the crucial essential jobs within the Catholic Church. Because of this, Prevost has a prominence going into the conclave that few different cardinals have.
ABC7 Chicago’s Liz Nagy reviews from the Vatican.
One strike in opposition to him, nonetheless, is that he is American, and there has lengthy been a taboo in opposition to a U.S. pope, given the geopolitical energy already wielded by the USA within the secular sphere. However Prevost, a Chicago native, might be a primary as a result of he is additionally a Peruvian citizen and lived for years in Peru, first as a missionary after which as an archbishop.
Prevost was additionally twice elected prior basic, or prime chief, of the Augustinian non secular order, the thirteenth century order based by St. Augustine. Francis clearly had a watch on him for years, shifting him from the Augustinian management again to Peru in 2014 to function the administrator and later archbishop of Chiclayo.
He remained in that place, buying Peruvian citizenship in 2015, till Francis introduced him to Rome in 2023 to imagine the presidency of the Pontifical Fee for Latin America. In that job he would have stored in common contact with the Catholic hierarchy within the a part of the world that counts nonetheless counts probably the most Catholics.
Ever since he arrived in Rome, Prevost has stored a low public profile, however he’s well-known to the boys who depend.
Considerably, he presided over one of the crucial revolutionary reforms Francis made, when he added three ladies to the voting bloc that decides which bishop nominations to ahead to the pope. In early 2025, Francis once more confirmed his esteem by appointing Prevost to probably the most senior rank of cardinals, suggesting he would not less than be Francis’ alternative in an any future conclave.
Prevost’s comparative youth may depend in opposition to him if his brother cardinals do not wish to decide to a pope who would possibly reign for an additional twenty years.
The Rev. Fidel Purisaca Vigil, the communications director for Prevost’s previous diocese in Chiclayo, remembers the cardinal rising every day and having breakfast along with his fellow monks after saying his prayers.
“Irrespective of what number of issues he has, he maintains good humor and pleasure,” Purisaca mentioned in an e mail.
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