VATICAN CITY (RNS) — For the second conclave in a row, the College of Cardinals shocked the watching world with its choice for the next pope. U.S. Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was a long-shot favorite, precisely because he was American — conventional wisdom being that a pope should not be drawn from a global superpower. But on Thursday (May 8), the smiling man who emerged from behind the red curtains in St. Peter’s loggia was a Chicago-born, Peruvian missionary — and the youngest man to don the white zucchetto in nearly 50 years.
But who is Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, and what might we expect from his papacy?
1. Prevost is American — and Peruvian.
Robert Francis Prevost, 69, was born and raised in Chicago’s south suburbs, attending the (now closed) Church of St. Mary of the Assumption. His father, Louis Marius Prevost, of French and Italian descent, was a World War II veteran and school administrator. His mother, Mildred Martínez, of Spanish descent, was a librarian. He has two brothers, Louis Martín and John Joseph. After studying math and philosophy at Villanova, he returned to Chicago to attend the Catholic Theological Union in Hyde Park, on Chicago’s South Side, from 1978 to 1982, accordi …
