For the city of Chicago and for Catholics across America, the election of the new pope has been a particular cause of celebration, as ITV News Correspondent Robert Moore reports
Robert Prevost – who will be known as Pope Leo XIV – has been named by the Vatican as the first ever American leader of the Catholic Church.
The 69-year-old, from Chicago, spent many years as a missionary in Peru.
Pope Francis brought him to the Vatican in 2023 as the powerful head of the office that vets bishop nominations, one of the most important jobs in the Catholic Church, giving Prevost a prominence going into the conclave that few other cardinals had.
Significantly, he presided over one of the most revolutionary reforms Francis made, when he added three women to the voting bloc that decides which bishop nominations to forward to the pope.
In early 2025, Francis again showed his esteem by appointing Prevost to the most senior rank of cardinals, suggesting he would at least be Francis’ choice in any future conclave.
One strike against him, however, is that he’s American, and there has long been a taboo against a US pope, given the geopolitical power already wielded by the United States in the secular sphere.
But Prevost, a Chicago native, could be a first because he’s also a Peruvian citizen and lived for years in Peru, first as a missionary and then as an archbishop.
Prevost was twice elected prior general, or top leader, of the Augustinians, the 13th-century religious order founded by St. Augustine. Francis clearly had an eye on him for years, moving him from the Augustinian leadership back to Peru in 2014 to serve as the administrator and later archbishop of Chiclayo.
He remained in that position, acquiring Peruvian citizenship in 2015, until Francis brought him to Rome in 2023 to assume the presidency of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. In that job, he would have kept in regular contact with the Catholic hierarchy in the part of the world that still counts the most Catholics.
Ever since he arrived in Rome, Prevost has kept a low public profile, but he is well known to the men who count.
Prevost’s comparative youth could count against him if his brother cardinals don’t want to commit to a pope who might reign for another two decades.
Subscribe free to our weekly newsletter for exclusive and original coverage from ITV News. Direct to your inbox every Friday morning.
Pope Leo grew up with two older brothers, Louis Prevost and John Prevost, who are both still based in the US.
Speaking after the pontiff’s appointment, Louis said he “freaked out” and described the news as “mind-blowing”.
“Shocking, surprising, exciting, I’m almost speechless, mind-blowing my brother was elected pope today,” he added.
“And when the cardinal read his name Robbbb… I knew Roberto, and he did I just freaked out. It’s Rob, Oh My God. I was dressed up just going nuts.”
The eldest of the three, John, said he knew from a young age his brother was going to be a priest.
“You know how some kids like to play war and be soldiers, and some kids girls want to play dolls and be housewives.
“He wanted to play priest and so he took our mom’s ironing board and put a tablecloth over it and we had to go to mass,” John added.
Although John didn’t expect his brother to become pope, he recalled a neighbour predicting that very thing when Robert was only a first grader.
“She sensed that at six years old,” he said. “How she did that, who knows? It took this long, but here he is, first American pope.”
These days, the brothers talk on the phone every day, John said. Robert will call him and they’ll discuss everything from politics to religion and even play the day’s Wordle.
John said he’s not sure how much time his brother will have to talk as the new pope and how they’ll handle staying in touch in the future.
“It’s already strange not having someone to talk to,” he added.
John Prevost said he felt immense pride when his brother was elected
The Rev. Fidel Purisaca Vigil, the communications director for Prevost’s old diocese in Chiclayo, remembers the cardinal rising each day and having breakfast with his fellow priests after saying his prayers.
“No matter how many problems he has, he maintains good humour and joy,” Purisaca said in an email.
The last pope to take the name Leo was Leo XIII, an Italian who led the church from 1878 to 1903.
That Leo softened the church’s confrontational stance toward modernity, especially science and politics and laid the foundation for modern Catholic social thought, most famously with his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which addressed workers’ rights and capitalism.
Follow STV News on WhatsApp
Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
