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For the first time in the history of the 2,000-year old Roman Catholic Church, a U.S.-born pope will lead its 1.4 billion members worldwide. Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, a sixty-nine-year-old originally from the Chicago area, was elected<\/a> by the largest conclave<\/a> of cardinals ever\u2014133 prelates from more than seventy countries\u2014to choose the the 267th pope<\/a> whom Catholics view as the successor\u00a0to Saint Peter. Most cardinals who voted had been appointed<\/a> by the late Pope Francis, the first pontiff from Latin America, who reached out<\/a> to the \u201cperipheries\u201d of the globe to diversify the powerful pope-electing group from its traditional European and American makeup.\u00a0<\/p>\n In his first major decision, Prevost took the name Leo XIV. The chosen name of a Supreme Pontiff is considered by Catholics to signal the new pope\u2019s vision and what is important to him. The last pope named Leo, who reigned from 1878 to 1903, strove to position the Church<\/a> in a quickly modernizing world. In 1891, Leo XIII wrote the landmark encyclical Rerum Novarum<\/em><\/a> (Of New Things)\u2014a letter sent to all the bishops of the Catholic Church at that time\u2014which championed the dignity of workers and the poor and from which today\u2019s body of Catholic social doctrine descends. The encyclical rejected both socialism and\u00a0unfettered capitalism, and called for fair wages and the right of workers to form unions.<\/p>\n Despite his U.S. roots and his undergraduate years studying mathematics at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, Leo XIV could also be considered the second Latin American pope after Francis, having spent decades<\/a> as a missionary with the Augustinian order and later a bishop in Peru. Like other well-known missionary migrants to Latin America, including the Spanish Jesuits who were martyred<\/a> in El Salvador in 1989, he became a naturalized citizen of the country where he lived and worked and has held citizenship in Peru<\/a> since 2015.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe is so close to us,\u201d says Aldo Panfichi, a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, in a telephone interview from Lima shortly after the new pontiff appeared on the central balcony in St. Peter\u2019s Square. \u201cFor us he\u2019s Latin American.\u201d<\/p>\n But Prevost is more experienced in the ways of the Vatican than Francis was in 2013 at the beginning of his term, having already served<\/a> in Rome, most recently as the Prefect for the Dicastery of Bishops, the key department in charge of researching and appointing bishops worldwide. There, he helped to carry out Francis\u2019s initiative to name more women<\/a> to important positions in the Curia, the bureaucracy that runs the Church\u2014though like his predecessor, he is firmly opposed<\/a> to allowing women to be ordained.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The fact that Prevost was elected relatively quickly<\/a>\u2014on the second day and fourth ballot of the conclave\u2014suggests a critical mass of support from other high ranking clergy, which could help him at the beginning of his pontificate. His invocation<\/a> of Francis at the beginning of his first speech as Pope Leo XIV appeared to come from the heart, and he was known as<\/a> being close to the late pope.<\/p>\n While the conclave\u2019s deliberations are kept strictly secret, it has long been rumored that the cardinal electors in the past have shied away<\/a> from voting for candidates from the United States due to its far-reaching global power, and concerns\u00a0 about undue influence on the Church from Washington, D.C.. As far back as 1899, Pope Leo XIII voiced suspicion<\/a> that what he called \u201cAmericanism\u201d\u2014the individualism and can-do attitude that was becoming part of the country\u2019s character\u2014might take priority over certain aspects of church doctrine, leading to an American Catholic practice that placed greater emphasis on hard work and interior spirituality than the virtues of faith, hope, and charity. When Robert Prevost\u2019s name came up in the pre-conclave list of \u201cpapabiles\u201d\u2014potential candidates for pope\u2014commentators often qualified him as<\/a> \u201cthe least American of the Americans.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In recent years, however, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has been markedly more conservative and traditionalist than those of other countries. When the group tried to forbid Holy Communion to newly elected President Joe Biden in 2021 for supporting abortion laws, Francis\u2019s Vatican stopped them<\/a>. Abortion, the Argentine Jesuit maintained<\/a>, was no more \u201cpre-eminent,\u201d than other pro-life issues such as capital punishment or care for the poor. Francis said he had<\/a> \u201cnever denied the Eucharist to anyone.\u201d Most U.S. bishops largely ignored Pope Francis\u2019s landmark 2015 encyclical on care for the earth, Laudato Si\u2019<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>which condemned the\u00a0economic inequity<\/a> that harms\u00a0the poor and most vulnerable, and which urged disinvestment from fossil fuels. Prevost, who was working in Peru and the Vatican, did not belong<\/a> to the U.S. Conference of Bishops.<\/p>\n But while many progressive Catholics are celebrating Pope Leo\u2019s election, the U.S. Catholic traditionalist movement is angling to increase its influence, as well. Coincident with the conclave, some of the wealthy lay supporters of the most conservative U.S. bishops attended pre-scheduled events in Rome where they wined and dined<\/a> with European Catholic ultra-traditionalists. There, they shared fundraising techniques for goals such as larger families, as well as ways to combat<\/a> increasingly positive attitudes toward same-sex couples and the expanding roles for women in the Church. Brian Burch, who will serve as President Trump\u2019s ambassador to the Vatican pending a final Senate confirmation vote, is a prominent figure in conservative Catholic advocacy circles, having previously supported Trump\u2019s campaigns<\/a> through his work as founder and president of a lobbying organization called CatholicVote.\u00a0<\/p>\n The U.S. bishops\u2019 conference will now have to compete with a variety of factions from many countries for the new pope\u2019s ear. Prevost\u2019s first words to the world<\/a> as Pope Leo XIV emphasized peace as a central desire, as well as inclusiveness, with openness \u201cto all, to all.\u201d His more detailed statement of policy, or vision of his pontificate, is likely to emerge in coming weeks. He may enjoy a honeymoon period with public goodwill at first, riding the memory of Francis, who was cherished by many. Soon, however, he will be expected to act on persistent issues such as priestly<\/a> celibacy, priestly ordination for women<\/a>, and the sex abuse crisis<\/a> within the Church. Prevost has already been recognized<\/a>\u00a0for calling out Trump\u2019s treatment of immigrants. In a speech in 2012, he condemned<\/a> what he termed the \u201chomosexual lifestyle\u201d\u00a0as being \u201cat odds with the Gospel.\u201d\u00a0While these statements are making<\/a> some LGBTQ+ Catholics nervous,\u00a0he has also been a supporter of Pope Francis\u2019s emphasis<\/a> on synodality, the process<\/a> of listening to all, including lay people, about the important directions of the church.<\/p>\n Panfichi, who worked with Prevost and others on university issues in Peru, including the new pope\u2019s desire to keep education available to low-income students, visited with him privately in Rome in September. He noted Prevost\u2019s approachable manner: \u201cHe speaks horizontally, as if comfortable with informality.\u201d<\/p>\n Before that meeting ended, Prevost mentioned how he liked the food of the Peruvian Chiclayo region where he had been, mentioning rice with duck, and said he looked forward to attending the region\u2019s annual festivities later this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI guess he\u2019ll have to postpone that now,\u201d Panfichi said.\u00a0<\/p>\n