STORY
Robert Francis Prevost has been elected by Cardinals as the next Pope and will take the name Pope Leon XIV. He is an American cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and a member of the Order of Saint Augustine. Born on 14 September 1955, in Chicago, Illinois, he entered the Augustinian order and was ordained a priest in 1982. A man of deep academic and pastoral experience, he earned a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome and went on to serve in various capacities within the Church, including as a missionary in Peru. There, he spent many years engaged in pastoral work and leadership, eventually becoming the bishop of Chiclayo in northern Peru in 2015, a position he held until his appointment to the Roman Curia.
In January 2023, Pope Francis appointed Prevost as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, placing him at the heart of the Church’s process for selecting new bishops around the world. He was subsequently made a cardinal in September 2023. Cardinal Prevost is known for his thoughtful, collegial approach to leadership and his commitment to missionary values, clerical formation, and synodality. His elevation reflects Pope Francis’s continued emphasis on pastoral sensitivity, international experience and reform-minded leadership in the upper echelons of the Catholic hierarchy.