Robert Prevost, the choice of the world’s Catholic cardinals to serve as leader of the 1.4-billion-member Church, is the first pope from the United States and a relative unknown on the global stage.
Aged 69 and originally from Chicago, Cardinal Prevost has spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru and became a cardinal only in 2023. He has given few media interviews.
He takes the papal name Leo XIV, and succeeds Pope Francis, who had led the Church since 2013.
Rev Mark Francis, a friend of Cardinal Prevost’s since the 1970s, said he was a firm supporter of his predecessor’s papacy, and especially of the late pontiff’s commitment to social justice issues.
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“He was always friendly and warm and remained a voice of common sense and practical concerns for the Church’s outreach to the poor,” said Fr Francis, who attended seminary with Cardinal Prevost and later knew him when they both lived in Rome in the 2000s.
“He has a wry sense of humour, but was not someone who sought the limelight,” said Fr Francis, who leads the US province of the Viatorian religious order.
Robert Prevost first served as a bishop in Chiclayo, in northwestern Peru, from 2015 to 2023, and became a Peruvian citizen in 2015, so he has dual nationalities.
Pope Francis brought him to Rome that year to head the Vatican office in charge of choosing which priests should serve as Catholic bishops across the globe, meaning he has had a hand in selecting many of the world’s bishops.
Jesus Leon Angeles, coordinator of a Catholic group in Chiclayo who has known Cardinal Prevost since 2018, called him a “very simple” person who would go out of his way to help others.
Mr Leon Angeles said Cardinal Prevost had shown special concern for Venezuelan migrants in Peru, saying: “He is a person who likes to help.” More than 1.5 million Venezuelans have moved to Peru in recent years, partly to escape their country’s economic crisis.
In a 2023 interview with the Vatican’s news outlet, Cardinal Prevost focused on the importance of evangelization to help the Church grow.
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“We are often preoccupied with teaching doctrine ... but we risk forgetting that our first task is to teach what it means to know Jesus Christ,” he said.
Cardinal Prevost said during a 2023 Vatican press conference: “Our work is to enlarge the tent and to let everyone know they are welcome inside the Church.”
Cardinal Prevost was born in 1955 and is a member of the global Augustinian religious order, which includes about 2,500 priests and brothers, operates in 50 countries and has a special focus on a life of community and equality among its members.
He has a bachelor’s degree from Villanova University in Philadelphia, a master’s from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and a doctorate in Church law from the Pontifical College of St Thomas Aquinas in Rome.
Cardinal Prevost first went to Peru as a missionary in 1985, returning to the United States in 1999 to take up a leadership role in his religious order.
He later moved to Rome to serve two six-year terms as head of the Augustinians, visiting many of the order’s communities across the world. He is known to speak English, Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese.
Returning to Rome in 2023, Cardinal Prevost generally did not take part in many of the social events that attract Vatican officials throughout the city.
Mr Leon Angeles said he is a person with leadership skills, “but at the same time, he knows how to listen. He has that virtue.”
“The cardinal has the courtesy to ask for an opinion, even if it’s from the simplest or most humble person,” she said. “He knows how to listen to everyone.”
There has never been a pope from the United States, and conventional wisdom suggested that any American would be a long shot.
Yet Cardinal Prevost was one American who some Vatican watchers said could scrape together the votes.
Rev Michele Falcone (46), a priest in the Order of St. Augustine previously led by Cardinal Prevost, described his mentor and friend as the “dignified middle of the road” to the New York Times earlier this week.
“He does not have excesses,” Fr Falcone said of Cardinal Prevost. “Blessing babies, yes. Taking them in his arms, no.”
While praised in Peru for supporting Venezuelan immigrants and visiting far-flung communities, the cardinal has drawn criticism over his dealings with priests accused of sexual abuse.
One woman in Chiclayo, who said she and two other women were sexually abused by two priests as girls long before Prevost was bishop, accused him of mishandling an investigation and of not stopping one of the priests from celebrating Mass.
The diocese of Chiclayo said Prevost opened an investigation that the Vatican closed. After a new bishop arrived, the investigation was reopened. Supporters of Prevost say he is the target of a smear campaign by members of a Peruvian-based Catholic movement that Francis disbanded. –New York Times and Agencies
