After being elected as the new Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIV celebrated his first mass in the Sistine Chapel.
Pope Leo XIV spoke for the first time in English, after delivering his first speech in Italian and Spanish. He is the first American Pope, who is also very close to Peru for the years he spent as a missionary in the country.
“During the mass, Pope Leo XIV expressed, ‘You have called me to carry the cross and to be blessed.’”
Prevost was born in Chicago, Illinois, but has had Peruvian nationality since 2015, where he spent much of his life and was bishop of Chiclayo until 2023. According to BBC Mundo, he was very close to Pope Francis, who took him to Rome to lead the Dicastery for Bishops since 2023.
After four votes, the cardinals gathered in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican finally chose the new Pope, leader of the Catholic Church, who assumed the position following the death of Pope Francis last April.
He is the first American Pope, but he has a very close relationship with Latin America, as in 2015 he received Peruvian citizenship, a country where he spent much of his life and became bishop of Chiclayo.
According to CNN en Español, Prevost was born in 1955 in Chicago, joined the Order of Saint Augustine in 1977, and was ordained a priest in 1982. Later, he obtained a doctorate in Canon Law in Rome.
Prevost also worked as a missionary in Peru. In 2018, he assumed the position of second vice president of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference and, in 2020, he was appointed by Pope Francisco as the apostolic administrator of Callao.
In 2023, Francisco appointed Prevost as the head of the office that evaluates bishop nominations from around the world, a role considered one of the most important in the Catholic Church.
Prevost was selected in a conclave that lasted only two days. In comparison, in 1922 the election of Pope Pius XI took five days; in 1939, that of Pius XII lasted two days; in 1958, the election of Pope John XXIII took four days; in 1963, that of Paul VI took six days. In 1978, the election of Pope John Paul I took two days, and in the same year, that of John Paul II took three.
More recently, in 2005, the election of Pope Benedict XVI took two days, as did that of Pope Francis in 2013.