Pope Leo XIV: Who is the first American pope?

The conclave made history by selecting the first American-born pope in the history of the Catholic church.

They elected Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost to succeed Pope Francis to become the 267th person to lead the church.

He will serve as Pope Leo XIV.

Here is what you need to know about the new pope:

He was born on September 14, 1955, in Chicago, entering the novitiate of the Order of Saint Augustine in 1977. He took his vows in 1981 and was ordained in 1982.

Prevost earned a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Villanova University in 1977, then earned a Master of Divinity from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

He has a licentiate and doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical College of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, writing a thesis on “The role of the local prior in the Order of Saint Augustine.”

He joined the Augustinian mission in Peru in 1985 and was chancellor of the Territorial Prélature of Chulucanas for a year.

He returned to Illinois from 1987 to 1988, serving as a pastor for vocations and director of missions for the Augustinian Province of Chicago.

Prevost returned to Peru and spent a decade as the head of the Augustinian seminary in Trujillo, where he was also the prefect of studies, among other positions such as parish pastor, diocesan official and judicial vicar.

He returned to Chicago as the provincial prior of the “Mother of Good Counsel” province in the archdiocese in 1999. In 2002, he was elected prior general of the Augustinian, serving until 2013.

The next year, he was appointed by Pope Francis as apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Chiclayo, Peru. He was made Bishop of Chiclayo in 2014 and served as a vice-president and member of the permanent council of the Peruvian Bishops’ Conference from 2018 to 2023.

He was the apostolic administrator of Callao, Peru, from 2020 to 2021.

Pope Francis appointed him as the Dicastery for Bishops in January 2023, which was responsible for selecting bishops and was in that position until the death of Francis on April 21.

He was made a cardinal by Pope Francis on September 30, 2023.

“Prevost is somebody who is seen as an exceptional leader. From very young, he was appointed to leadership roles. He’s seen as somebody who is calm and balanced, who is even-handed, and who is very clear on what he thinks needs to be done… but he’s not overly forceful in trying to make that happen,” Vatican analyst for CNN, Elise Allen, said.

Because of the service he did in Peru, Prevost was a “compromise candidate” for pope, according to the College of Cardinals Report, saying that, according to the publication, "allowed him to be seen as a more universal candidate than American which mitigated problems associated with choosing a pope from a superpower in his case."

He was also considered too young at the age of 69 and made a cardinal too recently, not even two years ago.

Prevost has come under fire twice for the handling of sexual abuse allegations against the church.

The first time was in his role as provincial of the Augustinian Province of Chicago when a priest was convicted of sexual abuse of minors but was allowed to stay at a priory near an elementary school and was permitted to function as a priest until he was removed. Prevost, according to the cardinals’ report, did not authorize the situation and the priest in question was not an Augustinian. The incident also took place before the Dallas Charter. The charter is a set of rules that were established in 2002, "addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy. The Charter also includes guidelines for reconciliation, healing, accountability, and prevention of future acts of abuse." The priest left in 2002, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

There are also questions about what Prevost knew and how he handled allegations of sexual abuse at the Diocese of Chiclayo, where two priests were accused of molesting three girls, with the allegations surfacing in 2022 while Prevost was bishop there. Some said he did not properly investigate the allegations and covered up for the priest. The diocese denies the allegation, saying that Prevost followed the procedures and that he personally “received and attended” to the girls and opened an investigation, the results of which were sent to the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith for Review.

Information provided by the College of Cardinals Report.

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