By Cassie Lee
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Pope Leo XIV[a] (born Robert Francis Prevost;[b] September 14, 1955) is the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State. He was elected pope in the 2025 conclave on May 8, 2025, following the death of Pope Francis.[2]
Born in Chicago, Prevost became a friar in the Order of Saint Augustine as a young man and was ordained priest in 1982. His service has included extensive missionary work in Peru from 1985 to 1986 and from 1988 to 1998, where he variously served as a parish pastor, diocesan official, seminary teacher, and administrator. Elected prior general of the Order of Saint Augustine from 2001 to 2013, he later returned to Peru as Bishop of Chiclayo (2015–2023). In 2023, Pope Francis appointed him prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, and made him a cardinal the same year.[3]
A dual citizen of the United States and Peru, Leo is the first North American pope and the first to hold either US or Peruvian citizenship.[4] He is also the first pope from the Order of Saint Augustine.[c] He explained that his choice of papal name is inspired by Pope Leo XIII who tackled the revolutionary change of the late 19th century, since Leo XIV sees the present moment as a time of revolutionary cultural challenge due to artificial intelligence to which the Church should respond “for the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor”.[7][8]
