Catholic cardinals broke with tradition Thursday and elected an American as the new pope and leader of the Roman Catholic Church, the first American pope in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church.
IN THE KNOW: Leo XIV’s celebrates his first Mass as pope
Chicago-born missionary Robert Prevost, the 267th pontiff, took the name Leo XIV and will lead the Catholic Church in a moment of global turmoil and conflict.
Pope Leo appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica about 70 minutes after white smoke billowed from a chimney atop the Sistine Chapel.
“Peace be with you,” he said in his first words as pope, offering a message of peace and dialogue “without fear.”
He wore the traditional red cape and trappings of the papacy — a cape Pope Francis had eschewed on his election in 2013 — suggesting a return to some degree of tradition after Francis’ unorthodox pontificate. But in naming himself Leo, the new pope could also have wanted to signal a strong line of continuity: Brother Leo was the 13th century friar who was a great companion to St. Francis of Assisi, the late pope’s namesake.
“Together, we must try to find out how to be a missionary church, a church that builds bridges, establishes dialogue, that’s always open to receive — like on this piazza with open arms — to be able to receive everybody that needs our charity, our presence, dialogue and love,” Leo said in near-perfect Italian.
Originally from Chicago, Prevost, 69, has spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru and became a cardinal only in 2023. He has given few media interviews and rarely speaks in public.
Prevost, a member of the Augustinian religious order, had been a leading candidate except for his nationality. There had long been a taboo against a U.S. pope, given the geopolitical power already wielded by the United States in the secular sphere.
He was seemingly eligible also because he’s a Peruvian citizen and lived for years in Peru, first as a missionary and then as an archbishop.
Francis, history’s first Latin American pope, clearly had his eye on Prevost and, in many ways, saw him as his heir apparent. He brought Prevost to the Vatican in 2023 to serve as the powerful head of the office that vets bishop nominations from around the world, one of the most important jobs in the Catholic Church. As a result, Prevost had a prominence going into the conclave that few other cardinals have.
Since arriving in Rome, Prevost has kept a low public profile but was well-known to the men who count. 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.
Celebrating the new pope
The crowd in St. Peter’s Square erupted in cheers Thursday when white smoke poured out of the Sistine Chapel shortly after 6 p.m. on the second day of the conclave, the most geographically diverse in history. Priests made the sign of the cross and nuns wept as the crowd shouted, “Viva il papa!”
Waving flags from around the world, tens of thousands of people waited for more than an hour to learn who had won and were surprised an hour later, when the senior cardinal deacon appeared on the loggia, said “Habemus Papam!” — “We have a pope!” in Latin — and announced the winner was Prevost.
He spoke to the crowd in Italian and Spanish, but not English, honoring Pope Francis and his final salute to the crowd on Easter Sunday.
“Greetings ... to all of you, and in particular, to my beloved diocese of Chiclayo in Peru, where a faithful people have accompanied their bishop, shared their faith,” he said in Spanish.
U.S. President Donald Trump said it was “such an honor for our country” for the new pope to be American.
“What greater honor can there be,” he said. The president added that “we’re a little bit surprised and we’re happy.”
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.
His most famous encyclical, Rerum Novarum of 1891, addressed workers’ rights and capitalism at the beginning of the industrial revolution and was highlighted by the Vatican in explaining the new pope’s choice of name.
Vatican watchers said Prevost’s decision to name himself Leo was particularly significant given the previous Leo’s legacy of social justice and reform, suggesting continuity with some of Francis’ chief concerns.
“He is continuing a lot of Francis’ ministry,’’ said Natalia Imperatori-Lee, the chair of religious studies at Manhattan University in the Bronx. But Imperatori-Lee also said his election could send a message to the U.S. church, which has been badly divided between conservatives and progressives, with much of the right-wing opposition to Francis coming from there.
Leo was expected to celebrate Mass with cardinals in the Sistine Chapel on Friday, planned to deliver his first Sunday noon blessing from the loggia of St. Peter’s and lined up an audience with the media Monday in the Vatican auditorium, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said.
Beyond that, he has a possible first foreign trip at the end of May: Francis had been invited to travel to Turkey to commemorate the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, a landmark event in Christian history and an important moment in Catholic-Orthodox relations. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, welcomed Leo’s election and said he hoped he would join the anniversary celebration.
The new pope was formerly the prior general, or leader, of the Order of St. Augustine, which was formed in the 13th century as a community of “mendicant” friars — dedicated to poverty, service and evangelization. Vatican News said Leo is the first Augustinian pope.
A long wait on the first ballot
On Wednesday night, the black smoke of the first ballot poured out of the chapel chimney just after 9 p.m., about 4.5 hours after the cardinals filed into the Sistine Chapel to take their oaths at the start of the conclave.
The late hour prompted speculation about what took so long: Did they have to redo the vote? Did someone get sick or need translation help? Did the papal preacher take a long time to deliver his meditation before the voting began?
“They probably need more time,” said Costanza Ranaldi, a 63-year-old who traveled from Pescara in Italy’s Abruzzo region to the Vatican.
After the initial inconclusive vote Wednesday evening, a further two votes followed on Thursday morning.
The cardinals returned to the Sistine Chapel at 4 p.m. Rome time, and at around 6:08 p.m., the white smoke emerged.
By NICOLE WINFIELD and VANESSA GERA, The Associated Press
Giada Zampano, Helena Alves in Rome, Franklin Briceno in Lima, Peru and Colleen Barry in Schiavon, Italy contributed to this report.