Catholic Church Elects Robert Francis Prevost as New Pope
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Catholic cardinals broke with tradition on Thursday and elected the first US pope, making Chicago-born missionary Robert Prevost the 267th pontiff to lead the Catholic Church in a moment of global turmoil and conflict.
Prevost, a 69-year-old member of the Augustinian religious order who spent his career ministering in Peru, took the name Leo XIV.
In his first words as Pope Francis’ successor, Leo said, “Peace be with you,” and emphasized a message of “a disarmed and disarming peace” dialogue and missionary evangelization.
“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, the AP reported.
Prevost had been a leading candidate for the papacy, but there had long been a taboo against a US pope, given the geopolitical power the country already wields. But Prevost was seemingly eligible because he’s also a Peruvian citizen and had lived for years in Peru, first as a missionary and then as bishop, and cardinals may have thought the 21st century world order could handle a US-born pope.
Francis moved Prevost from the Augustinian leadership back to Peru in 2014 to serve as the administrator and later bishop of Chiclayo.
