Who Is Léon XIV? Meet Robert Francis Prevost, the First American Pope

The American Robert Francis Prevost, 69, became on Thursday the first pope in history to be from the United States. He is a listening and synthesizing individual, categorized among the moderates, with a deep understanding of both grassroots issues and the inner workings of the Vatican.

“God loves us, God loves you all, and evil will not prevail,” he proclaimed during his inaugural speech, which aimed to reassure a world undergoing significant change and torn by wars.

He also called for “building bridges through dialogue and encounters, uniting us all to be one people, always in peace.”

Created a cardinal in 2023 by Francis, who facilitated his rise to the Vatican, he was, prior to his election, a member of seven dicasteries (the equivalent of ministries in the Vatican).

Robert Francis Prevost notably headed the powerful dicastery of bishops, making him a highly regarded advisor to his predecessor on the appointments of prelates.

Francis had a particular appreciation for this man, often described as discreet and reserved, who immersed himself for years in the “peripheries,” territories that had been remote or neglected by the Church until now.

A native of Chicago, Prevost spent a total of two decades in Peru, where he engaged in missionary work and became the emeritus archbishop-bishop of Chiclayo, in the northern part of the country, to which he expressed special thoughts in Spanish. He also holds Peruvian nationality.

He is known within the Curia, the Vatican’s government, as a moderate capable of reconciling divergent viewpoints, a shift from Francis’s more personal and sometimes abrasive exercise of power.

Vatican experts had favored him among the American cardinals leading up to the election, based on his on-the-ground experience, global vision, and ability to navigate the Vatican bureaucracy.

“The least American of Americans” His deep knowledge of canon law has also made him reassuring in the eyes of conservative cardinals looking for greater attention to theology.

After Francis’s death, he stated that there was “still much to be done” within the Church.

“We cannot stop; we cannot go back. We must see what the Holy Spirit wants for the Church of today and tomorrow because the world today, in which the Church lives, is not the same as the world ten or twenty years ago,” he asserted in April.

“The message remains the same (…), but the means of reaching today’s people, the young, the poor, and politicians, are different,” he believed.

This suggests a papacy characterized by a change in style but continuity in substance.

Born on September 14, 1955, Prevost studied at the small seminary of the Order of Saint Augustine, which he entered in 1977. He holds a degree in theology and also possesses a diploma in mathematics.

Ordained as a priest in 1982, he was sent two years later as a missionary to Peru, where he would remain for many years. He returned to Chicago in 1999 as provincial superior of the Augustinians of the Midwest and then became general prior in 2001.

In 2014, Pope Francis appointed him apostolic administrator of the diocese of Chiclayo, in northern Peru. It was in 2023 that he was appointed to the strategic position of the dicastery for bishops, succeeding Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who resigned due to age and was accused of sexual assault.