The Vatican has introduced the primary ever American chief of the Catholic Church – Robert Prevost, who will probably be generally known as Pope Leo XIV.
The 69-year-old cardinal was born in Chicago and spent a few years as a missionary in Peru.
He was made a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2023 and appointed head of the dicastery for bishops, a strong place answerable for choosing new bishops.
Considerably, he presided over one among Francis’s most revolutionary reforms when he added three ladies to the voting bloc which decides on the bishop nominations despatched to the pope.
As cardinal, he mentioned little on key problems with the church, however a few of his positions are recognized.
Picture:
Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost in September 2023. Pic: Reuters
He’s reportedly very near Francis’s imaginative and prescient relating to the setting, outreach to the poor and migrants. He mentioned in 2024 “the bishop is not supposed to be a little prince sitting in his kingdom”.
He additionally supported Pope Francis’s stance on permitting divorced and remarried Catholics to obtain Holy Communion. Nonetheless, he solely confirmed gentle assist for Francis permitting monks to bless same-sex {couples}.
Pope Leo has years of expertise in management roles throughout the church.
He was twice elected to the highest place of the Augustinian non secular order and Francis clearly had an eye fixed on his progress – transferring him from the Augustinian management again to Peru in 2014, the place he served as administrator and later archbishop of Chiclayo.
He acquired Peruvian citizenship in 2015 and remained in that position till 2023, when Francis introduced him to Rome.
Whereas there has lengthy been a taboo towards an American pope – given the geopolitical energy the US already wields – Leo was being promoted as a “compromise candidate” forward of the conclave. The period of time he has spent in Peru additionally permits him to be seen as a extra common candidate reasonably than American.
The world realized a brand new pope had been chosen at round 6.08pm native time (5.08pm UK time) on Thursday as white smoke all of a sudden emerged from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel.
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6:35
New pope elected by conclave
The 133 cardinals sequestered within the chapel picked the brand new chief of the Catholic Church on the second day of the conclave.
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Because the smoke appeared, cheers went up in St Peter’s Sq., the place hundreds of individuals had gathered within the hope of witnessing historical past.
Simply over an hour later, the Pope was launched on the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica as a crowd of an estimated 50,000 folks seemed on.
