Profile
Robert
Francis Prevost: the moderate, good-humoured first US pope
Colleagues
recall a calm and grounded leader capable of moderating between factions, with
a strong connection to his predecessor
Thu 8 May
2025 20.47 BST
Robert
Francis Prevost – who has chosen the papal name Leo XIV – may not be the Latin
American Jesuit wildcard that his predecessor, Pope Francis, was, but his
election is similarly historic.
In the
figure of the 69-year-old former head of the Augustinian order, the Roman
Catholic church has its very first US leader. Until Thursday evening, the idea
of the fisherman’s ring being slipped on to a North American hand was seen as a
fairly distant possibility. The Vatican’s longstanding opposition to a US pope
stemmed largely from the optics of having a pontiff from a political superpower
and a country with such a hegemonic cultural and secular global influence.
But all that
changed after a short conclave that chose a man who had been a cardinal for
only a little more than two years. While his appointment is likely to be
welcomed by progressive factions within the church, it was probably not the
news that some of his more conservative, Trump-aligned US brother cardinals had
been hoping for.
Despite
being born in Chicago on 14 September 1955, Prevost has never been a typical US
Catholic cleric – not least because he also holds Peruvian citizenship. After
giving his solemn vows in 1981 and studying in Rome, he was sent to a mission
in Peru. He would go on to spend many years there as judicial vicar and as a
professor of canon, patristic and moral law at a seminary in Peru’s third city,
Trujillo, before being appointed bishop of another northern city, Chiclayo, in
November 2014.
Those who
know him from his time in Peru – where the church has often been beset by
tensions between leftwing proponents of liberation theology and
uber-traditionalist Catholics – recall a calm and grounded leader who would sit
down to breakfast with his fellow priests after morning prayers.
“No matter
how many problems he has, he maintains good humour and joy,” the Rev Fidel
Purisaca Vigil, the communications director for Prevost’s old diocese in
Chiclayo, told the Associated Press.
As a recent
profile in Crux noted, Prevost acquired a reputation over the years as a
hard-working and “moderating influence” among Peru’s ideologically disparate
bishops, a talent that will prove invaluable during his papacy.
In January
2023, Francis – who himself had to manage competing theological strains during
his time as leader of the Jesuits in the turbulent, violent and oppressive
Argentina of the 1970s – made Prevost a cardinal.
Until
Thursday evening, Prevost’s most high-profile Vatican roles had been as
president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and as prefect of the
Dicastery for Bishops, which oversees the selection of new bishops from around
the world.
His strong
connection to Latin America, combined with his more recent roles at the top of
the church, may have gone a long way in endearing him to those who would not
usually countenance the idea of a US pope.
Prevost’s
recent CV also makes clear his proximity to Francis and he will doubtless be
seen by many as a surprise, if welcome, kind of continuity candidate.
Donald
Trump, who hailed the appointment, calling the arrival of the first US pope “a
Great Honor for our Country”, seldom saw eye-to-eye with Francis. The late pope
was forthright in his criticism of Trump’s border and immigration policies –
not least his desire to wall off Mexico.
“A person
who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building
bridges, is not Christian,” Francis said in February 2016. “This is not the
gospel.”
The blunt
rebuke did not land well with Trump. “For a religious leader to question a
person’s faith is disgraceful,” he said in response. “No leader, especially a
religious leader, has the right to question another man’s religion or faith.”
Whether
Trump is right to be looking forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV – “it will be a
very meaningful moment!” – will depend on the degree to which the new bishop of
Rome emulates his predecessor.
Towards the
beginning of his widely admired papacy, Francis insisted that the church should
not be remote, nor cloistered, nor complacent in its relationship with the
world.
“‘Mere
administration’ can no longer be enough,” he wrote. “Throughout the world, let
us be ‘permanently in a state of mission’.” Francis was adamant that the church
he led for 12 years would be a church for “todos, todos, todos” (everyone,
everyone, everyone). He also said he preferred a church “which is bruised,
hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church
which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security”.
More than a
decade on, the streets – from Gaza and Ukraine to Sudan and Kashmir – have only
become more bloody and more violent. As he addressed the world from the loggia
of St Peter’s Basilica on Thursday, Pope Leo XIV’s first words were: “Peace be
with you.”
His
subsequent message, stressing the importance of peace, dialogue and missionary
evangelisation, befitted the former leader of a mendicant order dedicated to
poverty, service and pastoral work. But in his plea for peace to “enter your
hearts, to reach your families and all people, wherever they are”, there was
also, perhaps, more than a trace of his much-loved and much-missed predecessor.
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