The Conclave has elected the 267th Bishop of Rome, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost. The announcement was given to the crowd by Protodeacon Cardinal Dominique Mamberti.

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Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum: habemus Papam!, “I announce to you with great joy: We have a Pope!” A few moments ago, from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, Cardinal Protodeacon Dominique Mamberti pronounced the long-awaited Latin formula, communicating to Rome and the world the name of the new Successor of Peter:

“Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum, Dominum Robertum Franciscum Sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ Cardinale Prevost, qui sibi nomen imposuit Leo XIV.”

The English translation is: “Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord, Sir Robert Francis, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, Prevost, who has taken the name of Leo XIV.”

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Biography of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost

The first Augustinian Pope, he is almost 70 years old. He chose the name Leo XIV. He was Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, elected at 6:07 p.m. He is the 267th Pope in history.

The first Augustinian Pope, he is the second Pontiff from the American continent, after Francis, but unlike Bergoglio, the 69-year-old American Robert Francis Prevost is originally from North America. In fact, the new Bishop of Rome was born on September 14, 1955, in Chicago (Illinois, USA), the son of Louis Marius Prevost, of French and Italian descent, and Mildred Martínez, of Spanish descent. He has two brothers, Louis Martín and John Joseph.

He spent his childhood and adolescence with his family and studied first at the Minor Seminary of the Augustinian Fathers and then at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, where he graduated in Mathematics and studied Philosophy in 1977. On September 1 of that same year, he entered the novitiate of the Order of Saint Augustine (OSA) of St. Louis, in the Province of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Chicago, and made his first profession on September 2, 1978. On August 29, 1981, he made his solemn vows.

He received his training at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, earning a degree in Theology. At the age of 27, his superiors sent him to Rome to study Canon Law at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum). In the city, he was ordained a priest on June 19, 1982, at the Augustinian College of Saint Monica by Monsignor Jean Jadot, pro-president of the Pontifical Council for Non-Christians, now the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue.

Prevost received his licentiate in 1984, and the following year, while preparing his doctoral thesis, he was sent to the Augustinian mission in Chulucanas, Piura, Peru (1985-1986). In 1987, he discussed his doctoral thesis on “The Role of the Local Prior of the Order of Saint Augustine” and was appointed Director of Vocations and Director of Missions of the “Mother of Good Counsel” Augustinian Province in Olympia Fields, Illinois (USA).

In the space of eleven years he held the positions of prior of the community (1988-1992), director of formation (1988-1998) and professor of professed (1992-1998) and, in the archdiocese of Trujillo, judicial vicar (1989-1998) and professor of Canon Law, Patristics and Morals in the Major Seminary “San Carlos y San Marcelo”. At the same time, he was entrusted with the pastoral care of Our Lady Mother of the Church, later a parish named after Saint Rita (1988-1999), on the city’s poor outskirts, and served as parish administrator of Our Lady of Montserrat from 1992 to 1999.

In 1999, he was elected Prior Provincial of the Augustinian Province of “Mother of Good Counsel” in Chicago. Two and a half years later, at the Ordinary General Chapter of the Order of Saint Augustine, his brothers elected him Prior General, confirming him for a second term in 2007.

In October 2013, he returned to his Augustinian province in Chicago and served as Director of Formation at the Convent of Saint Augustine, as First Councilor, and as Provincial Vicar. He held these positions until Pope Francis appointed him, on November 3, 2014, apostolic administrator of the Peruvian diocese of Chiclayo, elevating him to the episcopal dignity of titular bishop of Sufar. He entered the diocese on November 7, in the presence of Apostolic Nuncio James Patrick Green, who ordained him bishop a little over a month later, on December 12, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in the Cathedral of Santa Maria.

His episcopal motto is “In Illo uno unum,” words spoken by Saint Augustine in a sermon, the Exposition on Psalm 127, to explain that “although we Christians are many, in the one Christ we are one.”

On September 26, 2015, he was appointed Bishop of Chiclayo by the Argentine Pope, and in March 2018, he was elected Second Vice President of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference, where he is also a member of the Economic Council and President of the Commission for Culture and Education.

In 2019, under Pope Francis, he was appointed to the Congregation for the Clergy on July 13, 2019, and the following year, to the Congregation for Bishops (November 21).

Meanwhile, on April 15, 2020, he was also appointed by the Pope as Apostolic Administrator of the Peruvian Diocese of Callao.

On January 30, 2023, the Pope called him to Rome as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, promoting him to archbishop. And in the Consistory of September 30 of the same year, he created and appointed him cardinal, assigning him the diaconate of Santa Monica. Prevost took office on January 28, 2024, and, at the head of the dicastery, he participated in the last apostolic journeys of Pope Francis and in the first and second sessions of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on Synodality, held in Rome from January 4 to