Robert Francis Prevost: the moderate, good humoured first American pope
Sam Jones
Robert Francis Prevost – who has chosen the papal name Leo XIV – may not be the Latin American Jesuit wildcard that his predecessor, Pope Francis, was, but his election is similarly historic.
In the figure of the 69-year-old former head of the Augustinian order, the Roman Catholic church has its very first US leader.
Until Thursday evening, the idea of the fisherman’s ring being slipped on to a North American hand was seen as a fairly distant possibility.
The Vatican’s longstanding opposition to a US pope stemmed largely from the optics of having a pontiff from a political superpower and a country with such a hegemonic cultural and secular global influence.
But all that changed after a short conclave that chose a man who had been a cardinal for only a little more than two years.
While his appointment is likely to be welcomed by progressive factions within the church, it was probably not the news that some of his more conservative, Trump-aligned US brother cardinals had been hoping for.
Read the full profile: Robert Francis Prevost: the moderate, good humoured first American pope
Key events
The choice of the name Leo, is a “clear and deliberate” reference to Pope Leo XIII, author of the 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which marked the beginning of the Churchs’s modern social doctrine, Vatican News reports citing papal spokesperson Matteo Bruni. He said:
In this context, it is clearly a reference to the lives of men and women, to their work – even in an age marked by artificial intelligence.
US media have reported that the new pope has voted in three Republican primaries in his home state of Illinois since 2012, but no Democratic primaries.
He did not vote in last year’s presidential election, according to the New York Times, which cited records from Will County, in suburban Chicago. Nor did he vote in the 2020 election in Will Country, or the 2022 midterms. The last Republican primary he voted in was 2016.
As we mentioned earlier, Pope Leo XIV appears to have criticised the stance by US vice-president JD Vance, also a Catholic, on immigration. One article was headlined “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.” In 2020, in the wake of George Floyd’s death, Leo tweeted, “We need to hear more from leaders in the Church, to reject racism and seek justice.”
These tweets appear to have upset the Maga movement in the US. Far-right influencer Laura Loomer wrote in a post on X:
He is anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, pro-open Borders, and a total Marxist like Pope Francis. Catholics don’t have anything good to look forward to. Just another Marxist puppet in the Vatican.
She also claimed he supported illegal immigrants and open borders, though it is not clear why she thinks that.
Another influential Maga cheerleader, Charlie Kirk, wrote:
Pope Leo XIV: Registered Chicago Republican and pro-life warrior OR Open borders globalist installed to counter Trump?
Catherine Pepinster
For cardinals in the conclave pondering who the next leader of the Catholic church should be, they will have considered leadership skills, pastoral experience, knowledge of the Vatican and toughness. Robert Prevost has all this in spades.
He led his religious order as prior general, he has worked in a diocese, and since 2023 has been in charge of the Vatican department that chooses bishops. The view is that he has made having a compassionate or pastoral approach a priority for choosing who joins the episcopacy.
There will be some who will worry that Prevost blotted his copybook when it came to dealing with abuse crises in Peru. The sexual abuse of children and vulnerable people remains a stain on the Catholic church, and how he handles it will be one of his great tests.
While some LGBTQ+ organisations noted that, before Pope Francis was elected, Prevost expressed concerns about what he called “the homosexual lifestyle”, it is noticeable that one of the Catholic church’s leading advocates for gay people, the American Jesuit priest, James Martin, has described Prevost’s election as “a brilliant choice”, and said that Prevost is “kind, open and honest”.
The Workers’ Pope?
Catherine Pepinster
What’s in a name? When it comes to a pope – everything. The white smoke from the Sistine Chapel earlier this evening told the world that a new pope to succeed Francis had been elected – and for the first time the pontiff is from the US.
But if Donald Trump and his Catholic convert Veep, JD Vance, are ready to cheer, then they should think again. Cardinal Robert Prevost has chosen the name Leo XIV – and if you’re a papal Leo, you tend to be a reformer at the progressive end of Catholicism.
That Prevost has decided to become Leo XIV will make Catholics think immediately of the last Leo – Leo XIII – and his 1891 encyclical or teaching document, Rerum Novarum, which outlined workers’ rights to a fair wage, safe working conditions and the rights of workers to belong to trade unions. If Pope Francis was the People’s Pope, then Leo XIV is all set to be the Workers’ Pope.
Dan Collyns
Peru’s president, Dina Boluarte, hailed the “historic” election of Leo XIV, whom she described as a Peruvian “by choice and conviction” who had devoted more than 20 years of service to the country. She added that Prevost, 69, “chose to be one of us, to live among us and to carry in his heart the faith, culture and dreams of this country”.
She added: “The pope is Peruvian; God loves Peru.”
Even so, Prevost has spoken out against Boluarte’s government in the past. In early 2023, he described his “sadness and pain” over the deaths of 49 protesters in anti-government demonstrations that erupted when President Boluarte took office in December 2022, replacing Pedro Castillo who was forced out for attempting to suspend congress.
At the time Prevost said the unrest reflected the historic neglect of Peru’s poor, saying: “This conflict does not represent the best of the country.”
Pope Leo also called on late former president Alberto Fujimori, who was jailed in 2009 for human rights abuses and corruption to ask for forgiveness from each of his government’s victims in order to begin a process of reconciliation.
His suggestion came just two days after Fujimori was given a presidential pardon as part of a political deal and released a video with a half-hearted apology. Prevost pointedly suggested “it would be more effective to ask for forgiveness, personally, for some of the great injustices that were committed and for which he was tried and sentenced”.
The controversial ex-leader was sent back to jail in 2018, only to be pardoned again in 2023 amid street protests. He died in 2024 and was given a state funeral.
Dan Collyns
As news of Leo’s election began to sink in, social media in Peru was flooded with memes of the pope eating ceviche, Peru’s flagship dish, and drinking Inca Kola, its bubblegum-flavoured soft drink.
Others showed him in Peru’s red-and-white football shirt and another humorous image showed the popemobile refashioned as a three-wheeled motorcycle rickshaw, the principal mode of transport in much of the country.
Some posts on social media jokingly claimed that the new pope was “more Latino than the entire cast of Emilia Pérez”, referencing the French film that sparked controversy over its portrayal of Mexico.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has called on the new Pope Leo XIV to pursue the “peace efforts” of his predecessor Francis, in an official statement.
Abbas sent “best wishes for the success of Pope Leo XIV in the pursuit of his noble task and maintaining the legacy of the late Pope Francis,” said the statement.
Abbas highlighted the “importance of the moral, religious and political role of the Vatican in the defence of just causes”, adding that “the Palestinian people and their right to liberty and independence” should be at the top.
Pope Francis had been a critic of Israel’s war on Gaza and had called the Holy Family Church in Gaza City every day after the war began until his death.
Shortly after his death it was revealed that Francis had approved the conversion of his popemobile into a mobile health clinic to treat children in Gaza.
Pope Leo XIV fell in love with Peru and its signature dish of raw seafood, ceviche, over his nearly two decades in the country, his successor as bishop of the northern city of Chiclayo has said said. AFP reports:
“He loved goat, duck with rice and ceviche, those were his favourite dishes,” Chiclayo’s current bishop Edison Farfan told a press conference.
He added that there were photographs in Chiclayo of him riding a horse.
Farfan recalled Prevost’s beginnings in Peru as a missionary in the northern town of Chulucanas, fresh out of university in the United States.
From there he moved to the coastal city of Trujillo, where he helped set up an Augustinian seminary, before finally winding up in the far northern city of Chiclayo, where he was ordained a bishop in 2015, Farfan said.
Leo gave “his whole life to the mission in Peru,” Farfan said, adding that the new pontiff, like his Argentine predecessor Francis, was particularly driven by poverty and by people living on the “periphery” of society.
Anna Betts
The internet exploded with humor and Chicago pride on Thursday following the historic announcement that Robert Francis Prevost, a 69-year-old American clergyman from Chicago, has been named the new pope.
The Chicago mayor, Brandon Johnson, celebrated the moment on social media, posting:
Everything dope, including the Pope, comes from Chicago! Congratulations to the first American Pope Leo XIV! We hope to welcome you back home soon.
Other users asked for “photos of the new pope at the Bean” Chicago’s famous sculpture, while MSNBC’s Chris Hayes wondered whether the pope was a Chicago Cubs fan, as others asked if he was a White Sox fan.
One X user joked: “In honor of Chicago’s own Pope Leo XIV, the White Sox announce the new ‘White Smoke Shake’ that will be served in a commemorative pope hat.” Another poked fun at the Chicago Bears American Football team, writing: “Chicago produced a pope before a QB who throws for 4,000 yards.”
Others referenced Chicago’s famous deep dish pizza, joking about the pope serving deep dish pizza and to ask whether the new pope thinks that Chicago or Rome have better pizza.
The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, has offered his “heartfelt” congratulations to Pope Leo XIV and Catholics around the world.
“Our world is in need of the strongest voices for peace, social justice, human dignity [and] compassion,” the UN chief posted to X.
I look forward to building on the long legacy of cooperation between the UN and the Holy See to advance solidarity, foster reconciliation & build a just and sustainable world for all.
Robert Francis Prevost: the moderate, good humoured first American pope
Sam Jones
Robert Francis Prevost – who has chosen the papal name Leo XIV – may not be the Latin American Jesuit wildcard that his predecessor, Pope Francis, was, but his election is similarly historic.
In the figure of the 69-year-old former head of the Augustinian order, the Roman Catholic church has its very first US leader.
Until Thursday evening, the idea of the fisherman’s ring being slipped on to a North American hand was seen as a fairly distant possibility.
The Vatican’s longstanding opposition to a US pope stemmed largely from the optics of having a pontiff from a political superpower and a country with such a hegemonic cultural and secular global influence.
But all that changed after a short conclave that chose a man who had been a cardinal for only a little more than two years.
While his appointment is likely to be welcomed by progressive factions within the church, it was probably not the news that some of his more conservative, Trump-aligned US brother cardinals had been hoping for.
Read the full profile: Robert Francis Prevost: the moderate, good humoured first American pope
Canada’s newly elected prime minister, Mark Carney, has called the pope’s election a “historic day for Catholics and all who look to the Vatican for guidance”.
A practicing Catholic, Carney said he offered his “prayers and best wishes” to Pope Leo XIV, adding:
At a time of global challenges, may his pontificate carry forward a mission of solidarity, compassion, and dignity for all.
A London LGBT+ faith group has welcomed the election of Robert Francis Prevost as Pope Leo XIV and said it hopes he has “moved on” from previous remarks where he criticised the “homosexual lifestyle”.
As we reported earlier, Prevost said in a 2012 address to the world Synod of Bishops that “Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel — for example abortion, homosexual lifestyle, euthanasia”.
“We trust he will be open to listen to the lived experience of LGBT+ Catholics, their parents and families,” the statement by the LGBT+ Catholics Westminster Pastoral Council reads.
Opinions and ideas can change, and he supported Pope Francis’ change in pastoral practice to allow divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion, and he showed support for Fiducia Supplicans, allowing blessings for same-sex couples.
He has expressed openness to marginalized groups, though his stance on specific issues remains ambiguous, including the concerns of LGBT+ Catholics.
Jason Rodrigues
In the early hours of 20 February 1878, following a third ballot, the door of the ground gallery of the Vatican Basilica was thrown open and Italian-born Cardinal Pecci was announced as the successor to Pope Pius IX.
According to our Special Correspondent, the new Pope’s first appearance gave the signal for the ‘most vociferous cheering’, the Rome crowd taking up the shout and crying “long live the Pope”.
Readers were also told that the new Pope, who had chosen Leo out of admiration for Pope Leo XII, was a “man of moderate views in religious matters, though of distinguished piety, combined with great energy and character…”
Leo XIII’s papacy lasted until his death in 1903, making him one of the longest-serving Popes.
Biographers later noted that he “brought a new spirit to the papacy, expressed in more conciliatory positions toward civil governments, by less opposition to scientific progress, and by an awareness of the pastoral and social needs of the times.”
Here are some images from the newswires showing how people from around the world cheered the election of Robert Francis Prevost, now known as Pope Leo XIV.
Summary of the day so far
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A new pope is elected. US cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, will be known as Pope Leo XIV. It’s been a long while since we had a pope with this name: last Leo, Leo XIII, was elected in 1878 and served until his death in 1903.
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In his first comments after his election, Pope Leo XIV preached a message of “unity” and of “moving forward”. He said he wants this message of peace to “enter your hearts, to reach your families and all people, wherever they are.”
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Many shared their excitement at having an American pope, and specifically a pope born in Chicago. City mayor Brandon Johnson tweeted “Everything dope, including the Pope, comes from Chicago” and former US president Barack Obama congratulated the “fellow Chicagoan” on social media.
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US president Donald Trump said he was “surprised” but that it is a “great honor” to have an American pope. World leaders from several countries including Italy, Spain, Greece, Ukraine, Peru and the United Kingdom have offered their congratulations.
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An account on X widely believed to belong to the new pope shows him to be somewhat critical of the Trump administration. The account posted two articles that took issue with the stance by JD Vance, also a Catholic, on immigration. One article was headlined “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
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In a 2012 address to the world Synod of Bishops, Father Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV appeared to criticize homosexuality, saying “Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel — for example abortion, homosexual lifestyle, euthanasia”.
