VATICAN CITY — Robert Prevost, the Chicago-born 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 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 — suggesting a return to some degree of tradition after Francis’ unorthodox pontificate.
Prevost had been a leading candidate for the papacy, but there had long been a taboo against a U.S. pope, given the country’s geopolitical power already wielded in the secular sphere. But Prevost 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.
Early life and Education
Robert Francis Prevost was born in Chicago on 14 September 1955, the son of Louis Marius Prevost and Mildred Martínez. His father, who was a United States Navy veteran of World War II and school administrator,was of French and Italian descent, and his mother, a librarian, was of Spanish descent. Prevost has two brothers. As a child, Prevost served as an altar boy at St. Mary of the Assumption Church on the far South Side of Chicago. He completed his secondary studies at the minor seminary of the Order of St. Augustine in 1973. Prevost earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics at Villanova University in 1977.
Prevost speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese, and can read Latin and German.
