Vatican City (CNS) – cardinal Robert F. Prevost, born in Chicago and Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops under Pope Francis, was chosen on the 267th Pope on May 8 and took the name of Pope Leo XIV.
He is the first American chosen Pope and, before the conclave, he was the American cardinal most mentioned as a possible successor of San Pedro. It has American and Peruvian nationality, since it served as a missionary in Peru for many years.
The White Smoothie left the chimney of the roof of the Sistine Chapel at 6:07 pm, time of Rome, and a few minutes later the bells of the Basilica of San Pedro began sounding.
About 20 minutes later, the Vatican Police band and two dozen members of the Pontifical Swiss guard entered the Plaza de San Pedro. They soon joined the Italian Carabinieri music band, a branch of the Military Police, and units of other branches of the Italian army.
As soon as the news was known, people from all over Rome ran to join the tens of thousands who were already in the square to see the smoke. Among them was the mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri.
The French cardinal Dominique Mamberti, protodiacone of the Cardenalicio College, appeared on the central balcony of the Basilica of San Pedro at 7:12 pm: “I announce a great joy. We have Pope (‘Habemus Papam’)”, saying the name of the cardinal in Latin and announcing the name by which it will be called.
The cardinals who were over 80 years old, who could not participate in the conclave, joined the crowd in the square. Among them were the cardinals Sean P. O’Malley, Archbishop Emeritus of Boston; Donald W. Wuerl, Archbishop Emeritus of Washington; and Marc Ouellet, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for Bishops.
The 69 -year -old Pope has long been a missionary in Peru and has American and Peruvian nationality.
The repubblica, the main Italian newspaper, described it on April 25 as “cosmopolitan and shy”, but also said it was “appreciated by conservatives and progressive. It has worldwide visibility in a conclave in which few (cardinals) are known.”
This visibility comes from the fact that, as a prefect of Dicastery for bishops during the last two years, it was essential to help Pope Francis to choose bishops for many Latin rite dioceses, he met with hundreds of bishops during his visits “ad limina” to Rome and was called to help the bishops of the Latin rite of the world “in all matters related to the correct and fruitful exercise of the pastoral confident ”.
The new Pope was serving as a bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, when Pope Francis called him to serve in the Vatican in January 2023.
During a talk in the parish of San Judas in Chicago in August, the then Cardinal said that Pope Francis nominated him for that position “specifically because he did not want someone from the Roman curia to assume this role. He loved a missionary; he wanted someone from outside; he wanted someone to enter with a different perspective.”
In a 2024 March interview with Catholic News Service, he said that Pope Francis’s decision in 2022 to appoint three women as full members of the Dicastery, giving them entry into the selection of bishops “contributes significantly to the process of discernment in the search of those who expect to be the best candidates to serve the church in the Episcopal Ministry.”
To dissuade attitudes of clericalism among the bishops, he said, “it is important to find men who are truly interested in serving, in preaching the gospel, not only with eloquent words, but rather with the example and the testimony they give.”
-In fact, said the cardinal, the “more effective and important” bastion of Pope Francis against clericalism is to be “a pastor who preaches with the gesture.”
In an interview in 2023 with Vatican News, then Cardinal Prevost spoke about the quality of essential leadership of a bishop.
“Pope Francis has spoken of four types of closeness: closeness to God, to the bishops, to the priests and all the people of God,” he said. “We must not give in to the temptation to live isolated, separated into a palace, satisfied with a certain social level or a certain level within the Church.”
“And we should not hide behind an idea of authority that today no longer makes sense,” he said. “The authority we have is to serve, accompany the priests, be shepherds and teachers.”
As a prefect of that dicastery, the then Cardinal Prevost was also president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, where almost 40% of Catholics in the world reside.
Natural of Chicago, he was also a general prior of the Augustinians and spent more than two decades serving in Peru, first as an Augustinian missionary and then as a bishop of Chiclayo.
Shortly after arriving in Rome to direct the Dicaster, he told Vatican News that the bishops have the special mission of promoting the unity of the Church.
“The lack of unity is a wound suffered by the Church, very painful,” he said in May 2023. “Divisions and controversies in the Church do not help anything. Bishops especially must accelerate this movement towards unity, towards communion in the Church.”
In September, a television program in Peru reported on the accusations of three women who claimed that the then Bishop Prevost did not act against a priest who sexually abused them when they were minors. The diocese flatly denied the accusation, noting that he personally met with the victims in April 2022, he took the priest from his parish, suspended him from his ministry and carried out a local investigation that later referred to the Vatican. The Vatican said there was not enough evidence to proceed, like the local prosecution.
Pope Leo XIV was born on September 14, 1955 in Chicago, Illinois. Bachelor of Mathematics from the Agustinian University of Villanova, Pennsylvania, entered the Order in 1977 and issued the solemn votes in 1981. He has a degree in theology from the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago and Doctor from the Pontifical University Santo Tomás de Aquino de Rome.
He joined the Augustinian mission in Peru in 1985 and worked in the country until 1999, when he was elected head of the Augustinian province of Chicago. From 2001 to 2013, he was a prior general of this order. In 2014, Pope Francis appointed him Bishop of Chiclayo, in northern Peru, and the Pope also asked him to be Apostolic Administrator of Callao, Peru, from April 20 to May 2021.
The new Pope speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and knows how to read Latin and German.
In Spanish
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