When the 69-year-old Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost on Might 8, 2025, appeared on the primary balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica for the primary time as Pope Leo XIV, he was cheered loudly by the massive crowd of pilgrims, vacationers, native Catholics and different onlookers, who had waited hours for the primary signal of white smoke and the official announcement.
As a specialist in Catholic historical past and ritual, I understand how vital this second was for Catholics and others all around the world. A brand new pope brings with him a way of pleasure usually combined with uncertainty.
However the selection of the Faculty of Cardinals got here as a shock to some. Prevost is the primary pope from the US, and, historically, the European-dominated Faculty of Cardinals has had reservations about selecting a cardinal from the U.S. for worry of an excessive amount of American affect within the church.
So, who’s Prevost and what may need influenced the cardinals’ vote?
Early experiences
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Prevost joined a Catholic spiritual order on the age of 20: the Order of St. Augustine, known as Augustinians, based within the thirteenth century. As a substitute of withdrawing from the world in remoted monasteries, members of this order traveled as mendicants to assist the poor in addition to function missionaries and academics.
Prevost studied theology each within the U.S. and in Rome and, as a newly ordained priest, spent a 12 months in Peru. After a brief return to the U.S. as an official of the Augustinian order in Illinois, he returned to Peru as a seminary professor to show canon regulation, the authorized construction of the Catholic Church. He would keep in Peru for the following 10 years.
In 1999, he turned the prior – that’s, the pinnacle – of the native Augustinian province in Chicago, and was later elected prior of the worldwide Augustinian order. This gave him a really world expertise, because the Augustinians had some 50 communities unfold throughout each continent.
In 2015, Pope Francis appointed him bishop for the diocese of Chiclayo in Peru. In 2019, Francis appointed him a member of a number of vital Vatican dicasteries, or departments, the place he turned very aware of the central church administration. Most significantly, he served as prefect – or chairman – on the Dicastery for Bishops.
Catholics maintain a photograph of newly elected Pope Leo XIV, in entrance of the Cathedral of Chiclayo, Peru, on Might 8, 2025, the place he served as bishop for a number of years.
AP Photograph/Manuel Medina
The truth is, due to his prolonged pastoral expertise in Peru and repair on the Vatican, some commentators had famous earlier than Prevost was chosen that, if the cardinals have been to elect an American pope, it could be him. His service on the Dicastery for Bishops was thought-about particularly vital, since members play a key position in deciding on new bishops.
World church
Through the twentieth century, particularly after the Second Vatican Council – a collection of conferences of the world’s bishops to modernize the church, ending in 1965 – the popes started to call cardinals from different components of the world that have been beforehand thought-about to be on the periphery of the Catholic Church.
And this led to popes being chosen from outdoors of Italy for the primary time in centuries. Pope St. John Paul II was Polish and the primary non-Italian pope because the sixteenth century. Pope Benedict XVI was one other non-Italian, born in Germany, who had served as a Vatican official. Pope Francis was born in South America to oldsters who have been Italian-born immigrants to Argentina.
The Faculty of Cardinals, which had few representatives from different continents till lately, is now far more worldwide. Some 80% of the cardinal-electors have been named by Francis, many from international locations that had by no means earlier than had a cardinal.
In reviewing his document, the cardinal-electors may need taken quite a lot of components under consideration. Prevost can be an efficient administrator as head of the church, and was an knowledgeable in church canon regulation. He had many years of expertise doing pastoral work in South America, in addition to in North America. And as prior basic of the complete Augustinian Order, he would possible have traveled extensively to go to lots of the communities he supervised.
Papacy beneath Leo
The second when the brand new pope emerged on the Vatican balcony.
The brand new pope appeared on the Vatican balcony sporting the normal papal clothes: white cassock, quick pink cape, embellished pink and gold stole, and golden cross hanging round his neck. Francis, then again, had appeared dressed within the plain white cassock of a pope.
Definitely, he had not chosen the simplicity of Francis. Was this an indication that he can be extra of a traditionalist?
His selection of a papal identify, I consider, might point out a distinct viewpoint. Pope Leo XIII wrote a groundbreaking encyclical in 1891, “Rerum Novarum,” subtitled “On Dignity and Labor.” On this he careworn the rights of employees to unionize and criticized the circumstances wherein they labored and lived. He additionally championed different rights the atypical employee deserved from their bosses and from their authorities.
Pope Leo XIII.
Francesco De Federicis through Wikimedia Commons
In his first remarks from the balcony, providing a glimpse into the course of his papacy, Leo XIV careworn the position of Catholics and the church as peacemakers and bridge-builders, in dialogue with different spiritual traditions and cultures. His first phrases have been “Peace be with you all,” describing this peace as “a disarmed peace, a disarming peace.” He additional urged Catholics to behave collectively “without fear … united with one another … to build bridges” via dialogue and outreach – to convey peace to the world.
He could not comply with precisely in Francis’ footsteps, however he’ll possible proceed strolling in the identical course.
