Pope Leo XIV Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times
By Tom Wright-Piersanti
“The idea of an American pope was unimaginable for generations,” Jason Horowitz, our Rome bureau chief, noted yesterday. Why would church leaders pick a pope from a global superpower that shapes world affairs?
Yet the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel chose Robert Francis Prevost, a 69-year-old Chicago native, as the 267th pope of the Roman Catholic Church. He has adopted the papal name Leo XIV. He’s the first American to hold the job.
Prevost has lived outside the U.S. for much of his life, and many in the Vatican view him as a churchman who transcends borders, Jason wrote. Today’s newsletter will guide you through The Times’s coverage of the new pope and his views.
Chicago to Peru
Robert Prevost, newly ordained, greets Pope John Paul II in 1982. St. Mary of the Assumption
Prevost grew up in a suburb just south of Chicago. His father was a school principal. His mother, a librarian, was deeply involved in their local Catholic parish, St. Mary of the Assumption, on the city’s Far South Side. His maternal grandparents were Creole people of color who moved north from New Orleans.
Julie Bosman, our Chicago bureau chief, interviewed Father William Lego, who has known Prevost since high school. “They picked a good man,” he said. “He had a good sense of right and wrong, always working with the poor.”
Prevost earned a degree in math from Villanova University and then a divinity degree at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Not long after, he moved abroad.
He lived for two decades in Peru as a missionary, priest, teacher and eventually a bishop — a role for which he became a naturalized citizen of Peru. Prevost led a diocese in Chiclayo, in a region of the country where flooding is common. He would often deliver food and other supplies to remote areas himself, sometimes carrying bags of rice on his back, one priest told my colleague Genevieve Glatsky.
Father Pedro Vásquez, another priest in Chiclayo, told The Times that he was so excited about the news that “my heart is going to fail me!”
Under Pope Francis, Prevost held one of the most influential Vatican posts, running the office that selects and manages bishops globally. His knowledge of the Vatican’s inner workings made him an attractive choice to the Roman Curia, the powerful bureaucracy that governs the church, our reporters in Vatican City wrote.
But at least one element of Prevost’s American childhood has stuck with him: Those close to him say he’s a baseball fan, and he has been known to explain the rules of the game to his Italian friends. (Prevost’s brother said the new pope roots for the White Sox — and also told WGN, a TV station in Chicago, that he enjoys Wordle.)
The pope’s politics
Francis appointed Prevost as a cardinal in 2023, and the two share some views of the church. Prevost told the Vatican’s official news website last year that bishops were called to “suffer with” the people they served, echoing Francis’ focus on the poor.
But the two may diverge on other points. In 2012, Prevost expressed concerns about what he called the “homosexual lifestyle.” A year later, the newly elected Francis made headlines when he said of gay people, “Who am I to judge?”
More recently, a social media account under Prevost’s name has taken aim at President Trump, according to my colleague Lisa Lerer, who covers politics. In 2018, the account shared a post from Cardinal Blase Cupich that said there was “nothing remotely Christian, American or morally defensible” about the administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents.
And in April, after Vice President JD Vance used a Catholic teaching to defend the Trump administration’s deportation policies, the account posted an article titled “JD Vance is wrong.”
Vance did not seem to hold a grudge. “Congratulations to Leo XIV, the first American Pope, on his election!” he wrote on social media yesterday. “I’m sure millions of American Catholics and other Christians will pray for his successful work leading the Church.”
The American faithful cheer the new pope. Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times
By Patricia Mazzei
The tens of thousands of faithful who were crammed into St. Peter’s Square exchanged befuddled looks when Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was announced as pope from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica. Who? People started searching his name on their phones.
“I think they just elected an American pope,” said Nicole Serena, 21, a student who is in Rome studying marketing.
Wait — an American?
Some faces fell.
“Maybe he’s a good guy?” said Catalina Zaza, 27, an Argentine art student in Rome. “We don’t know.”
A little over an hour earlier, when white smoke billowed from the chimney, some people hugged. Others raised their hands to rejoice in prayer. When the new pontiff was announced as Pope Leo XIV, the crowd began to chant, “Papa Leone!”
Then Leo stepped out. Onlookers shrieked with delight. “Peace be with you,” he said in Italian.
Only once Leo paid homage to Francis did many of those gathered appear to relax. Zaza and her friend Sofía Basanes, 30, also from Argentina, started to nod at the new pope’s calls for peace, justice, dialogue and love. Next to them, a young priest sobbed and an older nun’s eyes glistened with tears.
And when Leo began to speak in Spanish, the crowd broke into enthusiastic applause. “He lived in Peru!” one man yelled in Spanish. “Peruuuu!” Leo did not speak in English or mention the United States.
By the end, Basanes was crying, along with quite a few others around her. “We have so much faith in Pope Francis’ legacy,” she said.
More reactions
Across the U.S., news of Leo’s election was greeted with surprise — and delight. “I never thought it would happen,” said Tom Keane in Boston. “Not in my lifetime.”
On social media, Trump called Leo’s ascent a “Great Honor for our Country.”
Two priests reflected on what it feels like to see an old friend, known to them as Bob, become pope. “The papacy is certainly not something that I could ever see Bob Prevost aspire to,” one said. “I think he was just doing what he felt God was calling him to do.”
See photos from the moment Pope Leo emerged onto the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square.
Leo XIV celebrated his first mass as pontiff this morning in the Sistine Chapel.
The pope’s choice of the name Leo XIV is a clear reference to the last Leo, who led the church from 1878 to 1903 and helped marshal it into the modern world.
Leo’s priorities for the papacy seem to echo Francis’. He could turn out to be a countervailing voice against America’s newly powerful strain of right-leaning Catholics.