Pope Leo XIV (born Robert Francis Prevost; September 14, 1955) is head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State. 
He was elected in the papal conclave as the successor to Pope Francis (May 8, 2025).

 

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Pope Leo XIV became a friar of the Order of Saint Augustine in 1977 and was ordained as a priest in 1982.

His service includes extensive missionary work in Peru in the 1980s and 1990s, where he served as a parish pastor, diocesan official, seminary teacher, and administrator.

Elected prior general of the Order of Saint Augustine from 2001 to 2013, he returned to Peru as Bishop of Chiclayo from 2015 to 2023.

In 2023, Pope Francis appointed him prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, and made him a cardinal the same year.

As a cardinal, he emphasized synodality, missionary dialogue, and engagement with social and technological challenges. He also engaged with issues such as climate change, global migration, church governance, and human rights, and expressed alignment with the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

A United States citizen by birth, Leo XIV is the first pope to have been born in North America, the first to hold Peruvian citizenship (having been naturalized in 2015), the second pope from the Americas (after his predecessor Francis), and the first from the Order of Saint Augustine. His papal name was inspired by Pope Leo XIII, who developed modern Catholic social teaching amid the Second Industrial Revolution.