New Pope Elected: Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost Becomes First American Pontiff, Chooses Name Leo XIV

Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost has been chosen as the 267th Pope. He was elected by 133 cardinals locked inside the Sistine Chapel on the second day of their conclave — a process that has been in the cultural zeitgeist recently due to the Oscar-nominated movie of the same name starring Ralph Fiennes.

The new pontiff has taken the name Leo XIV and will be the first American Pope in history.

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“Peace be with you all,” the 69-year-old Leo XIV said as his first words to the cheering crowd after he appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica roughly 70 minutes after white smoke billowed from the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel. Pope Leo XIV in his speech said people needed “to be a single people,” always in peace. He added that Pope Francis’ weak voice in his last days still rang out to the world.

Prevost, who has spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru and became a cardinal in 2023, is considered a progressive who is expected to give continuity to Francis’ vision of greater reform within the Vatican. Francis brought him to Rome in 2023 to head a Vatican office in charge of choosing which priests should serve as Catholic bishops.

To people in Italy the main reference to a U.S. pope they had previously come across is Lenny Belardo, the protagonist of Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Young Pope” played by Jude Law, an American who in the TV series becomes the first American Pope, taking the name Pius XIII.

Leo XIV’s predecessor Pope Francis, birth name Jorge Maria Bergoglio, appointed 80% of the cardinals who voted to elect one of them as the next pope. Most of Bergoglio’s appointees are younger and more racially and geographically diverse than the men they replaced, and many appear to be far more progressive than he was.

However, according to The New York Times, Prevost has expressed less welcoming views on LGBTQ+ people than Francis. In a 2012 address to bishops, he lamented that Western news media and popular culture fostered “sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the gospel,” the Times said.

As examples he cited the “homosexual lifestyle” and “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children.”

At around 6:15 p.m. local time in Rome, white smoke emitted from the Sistine Chapel, meaning that a new pope had been elected. In order to win the conclave, the new pope needed to get 89 of 133 cardinal votes.

Pope Francis died on April 21 at 88 years old. He was the first Latin American leader of the Catholic Church, and during his 12 years as pope, tried to position the institution to become more inclusive.