American cardinal elected new Pope, calls himself Leo XIV

Robert Prevost, a missionary who spent his career ministering in Peru and took over the Vatican’s powerful office of bishops, was elected the first pope from the United States in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church.

Prevost, a 69-year-old member of the Augustinian religious order, took the name Leo XIV.

In his first words as Pope Francis’ successor, uttered from the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica, Leo said, “Peace be with you,” and emphasized a message of peace, dialogue and missionary evangelization.

He wore the traditional red cape of the papacy — a cape that Francis had eschewed on his election in 2013.

Prevost had been a leading candidate for the papacy, but there had long been a taboo against a US pope, given the country's geopolitical power already wielded in the secular sphere.

But Prevost, a Chicago native, was seemingly eligible because he’s also a Peruvian citizen and lived for years in Peru, first as a missionary and then as an archbishop.

Pope Francis clearly had his eye on Prevost and in many ways saw him as his heir apparent.

He brought Prevost to the Vatican in 2023 to serve as the powerful head of the office that vets bishop nominations from around the world, one of the most important jobs in the Catholic Church.

And in January he elevated him into the senior ranks of cardinals.

As a result, Prevost had a prominence going into the conclave that few other cardinals had.

He spoke to the crowd in Italian and Spanish, but not English.

The last pope to take the name Leo was Leo XIII, an Italian who led the church from 1878 to 1903.

That Leo softened the church’s confrontational stance toward modernity, especially science and politics and laid the foundation for modern Catholic social thought, most famously with his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which addressed workers’ rights and capitalism.

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