“We still hear in our ears the weak but always courageous voice of Pope Francis who blessed us. United and hand in hand with God, let us advance together,” these were some of the first words of Robert Francis Prevost, 69, after he was elected the 267th occupant of the throne of St Peter and he will be known as Leo XIV to a cheering crowd.
He is the first American to fill the role of pope, although he is considered as much a cardinal from Latin America because of the many years he spent as a missionary in Peru.
Born in Chicago in 1955 to parents of Spanish and Franco-Italian descent, the new leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Roman Catholics served as an altar boy and was ordained in 1982.
Although he moved to Peru three years later, he returned regularly to the US to serve as a pastor and a prior in his home city.
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He has Peruvian nationality and is fondly remembered as a figure who worked with marginalised communities and helped build bridges.
He spent 10 years as a local parish pastor and as a teacher at a seminary in Trujillo in north-western Peru.
Here are five things about him.
He is the first US pope
Although 10 of the 133 cardinal-electors at this week’s conclave were American, there had long been reticence about the notion of a US pontiff. Much of the opposition sprang from worries over how having a leader from a political, cultural and secular superpower could be interpreted. But that taboo was broken on Thursday evening.
Much of his career has been in Peru
After making his solemn vows in 1981 and studying in Rome, Prevost was sent to a mission in Peru. He spent more than 20 years there, serving as judicial vicar and as a professor of canon, patristic and moral law at a seminary in Peru’s third city, Trujillo, before being appointed bishop of Chiclayo in November 2014. The 69-year-old has Peruvian citizenship and is widely admired in South America’s third-largest country, hence all the Inca Kola and ceviche memes that greeted his appointment.
He is seen as a moderate and a skilled mediator
The conclave had been billed as a clash between progressives, who wished to carry on the Francis’s legacy, and conservatives, who wanted to return the church to a more traditionalist path. The new pontiff, however, is seen as a moderate figure and his time in Peru was marked by a talent for working with different theological factions. In an interview with the New York Times, his brother John Prevost described him as “middle of the road”, adding: “I don’t think we’ll see extremes either way.”
He led the Augustinian order
Prevost entered the novitiate of the Order of Saint Augustine in 1977, serving as prior general, or leader, from 2001 until 2013. The order, founded in Italy in 1244, is dedicated to poverty, service and spreading the word of God. Among its core values is a commitment to “live together in harmony, being of one mind and one heart on the way to God”. He is the first Augustinian friar to be elected pope.
He has held senior roles in the Vatican
The new pontiff, made a cardinal by the late Pope Francis in September 2023, had been president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and had served as prefect of the powerful Dicastery for Bishops, which oversees the selection of new bishops from around the world.
