PORTRAIT – The 69 -year -old American archbishop was elected pope this May 8, 2025 after the Conclave.
The American archbishop Robert Francis Prevost was elected Pope this May 8, 2025 and will take the name of Léon XIV, announced the Vatican. At 69, he became the 267th sovereign pontiff of history and succeeded François, who died on April 21.
It is a man of discreet God, almost shy, that the cardinals have just elected Pope. However, the American Robert Francis Prevost led a daring missionary life, first as a priest in Peru, in the ancient Inca lands, then as a bishop in this South America country covering part of the Amazonian forest, large as twice. He was almost an exception because within the Latin American episcopate, nationals of the United States are very rare. Anxious to renew the global episcopate from a proximity missionary perspective to the poorest, Pope Francis called him in Rome in 2023 to direct the powerful dicastery responsible for selecting the bishops of the world. Created Cardinal that year, this religious of the Order of Saint Augustine – who since his foundation in the 13th century refers to the rule of the famous author of the Confessions – therefore has a very atypical journey.
Coming from a family of French, Italian and Spanish ancestry, he was born in Chicago on September 14, 1955, in the feast of the Holy Cross. After his training in mathematics and philosophy at the University of Villanova in Philadelphia, he entered in 1977 as a novitiate among the Augustinian fathers, where he pronounced his wishes four years later, before receiving the priestly ordination in 1982 in Rome. It is a figure considered to be “progressive” within the Roman Curia which imposes his hands to give him the sacrament of order: Mgr Jean Jadot (1909-2009), diplomat of the Holy See then pro-president of the secretariat for the non-Christians. This Archbishop of Belgian nationality had been apostolic delegate in the United States from 1973 to 1980, at a time when nunciature did not yet exist because of the absence of formal diplomatic relations between Washington and the Holy See.
Missionary in Peru
Robert Francis Prevost obtained in 1987 a doctorate in canon law at Angelicum (Pontifical University of Saint-Thomas of Aquin) with a thesis on the role of the local prior of the Order of Saint-Augustin. Despite the commitment to prepare for his thesis, he wished to have a missionary experience in Peru in 1985, where he occupied the function of chancellor of the diocese of Chulucanas and vicar of the cathedral. Conquered by the communicative warmth and the meaning of the transcendence of the Peruvian people, he only returned a few months in his native Illinois as responsible for the pastoral of vocations and director of the missions for his province, before returning to Peru in 1988 for ten years during which he had many responsibilities in the archdiocese of Trujillo, on the brink of the peaceful ocean.
He founded a parish of which he is the first parish priest, and is also prior of his religious community, ecclesiastical judge, director of the Augustinian seminar, as well as prefect of studies and rector of the diocesan seminar, where he teaches canonical law, patristics and morality. Elected provincial for his region of origin covering the American Midwest, he returned to Chicago in 1999. Father PREVOST was then elected prior general of the Order of Saint-Augustin, a charge which he exercises during two six-year mandates, from 2001 to 2013.
After a year of transition as director of training at the Saint-Augustin convent in Chicago, the first provincial adviser and vicar, Pope Francis sends him back to Peru in November 2014, first as an apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Chiclayo, then as a bishop of the same diocese, a year later. This diocese of 50 parishes which extends over more than 15,000 km2, located in northern Peru, had 90 priests Incardineed in 2022, for a total population of 1.3 million inhabitants, including 83% of Catholics.
-Mediator qualities
Mgr PREVOST also exercises the burden of apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Callao, the Grand Port on the Pacific, from 2020 to 2021. Within the Conference of Bishops of Peru, he is elected vice-president, becoming a member of the Permanent Council from 2018 to 2023, and president of the Commission for Education and Culture from 2019 to 2023. An important role for institutional stability during the successive political crises which lead to the reversals of the presidents Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in 2018, Martín Vizcarra and Manuel Merino in 2020, and Pedro Castillo in 2022. Which suggests certain mediator qualities in the new pope who will probably have Migrants on the Mexican border.
It was in January 2018, during the pontifical trip to Peru, that François spotted Mgr Prevost, received in a private audience in 2021. He quickly appointed him a member of the dicastery for the clergy, in July 2019, and the dicastery for the bishops in November 2020, before entrusting him with a strategic dicastery, that of the bishops, responsible for selecting the first officials in the countries for a long time evangelized, mainly located in the northern hemisphere.
Taking the effective succession of Cardinal Marc Ouellet on April 12, 2023, of more traditional sensitivity, he became the first missionary bishop appointed to this position. The mission lands remain under the jurisdiction of the Dicastery for evangelization, the ex-conregation for the evangelization of peoples. However, bishops from the countries of the southern hemisphere have sometimes occupied the charge of the prefect of the Dicastery for the bishops, such as the Cardinaux Bernardin Gantin, Beninese, from 1984 to 1998 and Lucas Moreira Neves, Brazilian, from 1998 to 2000. During his first months in mandate, the new prefect, remained discreet in the media, is appreciated for his listening quality and control of files.
Barely elected, the new Pope has to face a controversy: his two years at the head of the Augustinian province Notre-Dame-du Bon Council (1999-2001) were the subject, twenty years later, of strong criticism of the American press because of his attitude in a case of sexual abuse on minors involving a member of his congregation. As a provincial, in September 2000, Prevost had indeed enabled the welcome of a religious sentenced for sexual abuse on minors in a Augustinian priory located near a primary school. With the tightening of the rules established by the American episcopate, this priest was dismissed from this residence, before being “Reduced to the secular state” According to the expression devoted, in 2012, after the discovery of new cases questioning it.
As a prefect of the dicastery for the bishops, Cardinal Prevost then had the mission of applying the rules of the motu owner of Pope Francis You are the light of the worldwhich can lead to the resignation of bishops recognized guilty of negligence, coverage or mismanagement of cases of abuse involving priests located under their jurisdiction. Member of the synod on synodality, this major project launched in 2021 to make the church more inclusive and less Clerical, Cardinal Prevost was particularly involved in the reflections on the appointments of bishops and their mode of governance, declaring that the selection process had to be more synodal, that is to say in particular the laity, which was already planned in the law in practice in terms of nunciatures.
Discreet and peaceful personality
During the second phase of the synod on synodality, in 2024, he highlighted the importance of a common formation for the bishops of the dioceses of the northern hemisphere and those of the so -called “mission” dioceses, inviting to better articulate the link between Rome and the local churches and to widen the selection of new bishops by consulting the people of God. In an interview with the Vatican media in 2023, he had explained that he did not wish that the choice of bishops was the result of a democratic or political process, defending the tradition of the Church.
In the same register, in early 2024, he was one of the bishops of the Curie who blocked the “Synodal Council” project of the German Synod, this structure wanted to allow democratically designated lay representatives to participate fully in the governance of the Catholic Church in the country. On the question of the role of women, the new pope will follow the line of François, dismissing the possibility of women deacon, a decision which, according to him, is likely to “clericalize” the woman whose vocation in the Church is not of the order of the ordained ministry. Cardinal Prevost has largely pleaded, however, to give more space to women, especially positions of responsibility. His dicastery has also transformed in this direction since three women sit there. His pontificate, faithful to the advances of the one who preceded him, will certainly be more serene, like the discreet and peaceful personality of Pope Leo XIV.
