American Cardinal Robert Prevo has been elected the new Pope, taking the name Leo XIV.
The election was announced on Thursday by French Cardinal Dominique Mamberti, who spoke from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square.
According to Vatican News, the Conclave elected the 267th Pope of Rome, announcing Cardinal Robert Prevo from the United States as the new pontiff.
It is noted that Prevo is the first Pope from North America and the first Augustinian Pope. The 69-year-old Prevo spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru.
Robert Francis Prevost was born in 1955 in Chicago (USA) and also has Peruvian citizenship.
He received his secondary education at the minor seminary of the Order of St. Augustine in 1973 and received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1977. He was ordained a priest of the Order of Saint Augustine in Rome in 1982, after which he obtained a licentiate and a doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical
University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome.
In 1985, he joined the Augustinian mission in Peru, where he headed the seminary and taught canon law. From 2001 to 2014, he was Prior General of the Augustinians in Chicago (elected twice). In 2015, he was appointed bishop of the Diocese of Chiclayo (Peru).
In 2023, Pope Francis appointed Prevo as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, a key position in the Roman Curia, and on February 6, 2025, elevated him to the rank of cardinal bishop.
The Pope speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese, and also reads German and Latin.
“It is a great honor for me to realize that he is the first American to become Pope. What excitement and what an honor for our country. I look forward to meeting Leo XIV. It will be a very important moment,” President Donald Trump wrote on the Truth Social platform.
