Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was born in Chicago who spent many years as a missionary in Peru before being elected at the head of the Augustins for two consecutive terms.
Vatican News
first Augustinian pope, he is the second American pontiff, after François, but unlike Bergoglio, the American Robert Francis Prevost, 69, is from the north of the continent. Indeed, the new bishop of Rome was born on September 14, 1955 in Chicago, Illinois, Louis Marius Prevost, of French and Italian origin, and Mildred Martínez, of Spanish origin. He has two brothers, Louis Martín and John Joseph.
He spent his childhood and adolescence in his family and first studied at the Petit Séminaire des Fathers Augustins, then at Villanova University, Pennsylvania, where he obtained in 1977 a diploma in mathematics and studied philosophy. On September 1 of the same year, he entered the novitiate of the Order of Saint-Augustin (OSA) in Saint-Louis, in the province of Notre-Dame du Bon Council of Chicago. He made his first profession on September 2, 1978 and his solemn wishes on August 29, 1981.
He studied at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, where he graduated in theology. At the age of 27, he was sent by his superiors to Rome to study canon law at Pontifical University of Saint-Thomas of Aquin (Angelicum). In the Urba, he was ordered a priest on June 19, 1982 at the Collège des Augustins de Santa Monica by Monsignor Jean Jadot, pro-president of the pontifical council for non-Christians, today Dicaster for interreligious dialogue.
Father PREVOST received his license in 1984 and the following year, while he was preparing his doctoral thesis, he was sent in the Augustinian mission of Chulucanas, Piura, Peru (1985-1986). It was in 1987 that he discussed his doctoral thesis on “the role of the local prior of the Order of Saint-Augustin” and that he was appointed director of vocations and missions of the Augustinian province “Mother of Good Counsel” in Olympia Fields, Illinois (USA).
The following year, he joined Trujillo’s mission, also in Peru, as director of the joint training project for the Augustinian aspirants of the Vicariats of Chulucanas, Iquitos and Apurímac. For eleven years, he held the priority of the community (1988-1992), director of training (1988-1998) and professor of teachers (1992-1998) and, in the archdiocese of Trujillo, vicar judicial (1989-1998) and professor of canonical, patristic and morality in the Grand Sémininaire “San Carlos and San Marcelo”. At the same time, he was entrusted with the pastoral office of Notre Dame Mother of the Church, which later became a parish bearing the name of Saint Rita (1988-1999), in the poor outskirts of the city, and was a parish administrator of Notre Dame de Monerrat from 1992 to 1999.
In 1999, he was elected provincial prior of the Augustinian province “mother of the good council” in Chicago, and two and a half years later, during the ordinary general chapter of the Order of Saint-Augustin, his brothers chose him as prior general, confirming it in 2007 for a second term.
In October 2013, he returned to his Augustinian province, in Chicago, and was director of training at the Saint-Augustin convent, first adviser and provincial vicar; Posts he held until Pope Francis appointed him, on November 3, 2014, apostolic administrator of the Peruvian diocese of Chiclayo, raising it to episcopal dignity as a bishop holder of Sufar. He entered the diocese on November 7, in the presence of the apostolic nonce James Patrick Green, who ordered him bishop a little more than a month later, on December 12, in the feast of Notre-Dame de Guadalupe, in the Cathedral Sainte-Marie.
-His episcopal motto is ” In that one one “, Words that Saint Augustine pronounced in a sermon, the exhibition on Psalm 127, to explain that” although we, Christians, be numerous, in the only Christ, we are one “.
On September 26, 2015, he was appointed bishop of Chiclayo by the Argentinian pontiff and, in March 2018, he was elected second vice-president of the Peruvian episcopal conference, in which he was also a member of the Economic Council and President of the Commission for Culture and education.
In 2019, François had among the members of the Congregation for the Clergy on July 13, 2019 and the following year, among those of the Congregation for Bishops (November 21). Entre-time, on April 15, 2020, the Pope also appointed him Apostolic Administrator of the Peruvian Diocese of Callao.
On January 30, 2023, the pope summoned him to Rome as a prefect of the Dicastery for the bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, thus promoting it Archbishop. At the consistory of September 30 of the same year, he created it and the cardinal, by attributing the diaconate of Santa Monica. He took possession of it on January 28, 2024 and, at the head of the dicastery, participated in the last apostolic trips of Pope Francis and in the first and second sessions of the XVIth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on Synodality, held in Rome from October 4 to 29, 2023 and from October 2 to 27, 2024, respectively. An experience of the synodal assemblies already acquired in the past as a prior of the Augustins and representative of the Union of Higher Generals (UGS).
In the meantime, on October 4, 2023, François was among the members of dicasteries for evangelization, section for the first evangelization and the new specific churches; for the doctrine of faith; for oriental churches; for the clergy; for consecrated institutes of life and societies of apostolic life; for culture and education; for legislative texts; of the Pontifical Commission for the State of the City of the Vatican.
Finally, on February 6, it was promoted to the episcopal order by the Argentinian pontiff, obtaining the title of suburbicary church of Albano.
During the last hospitalization of his predecessor to the polyclinic “Gemelli”, Mgr Prevost presided over the Rosary for the health of François on March 3 on Saint-Pierre square.
