BREAKING NEWS: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

BREAKING NEWS: First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

The new pope is revealed as Robert Prevost of the US, the first American pontiff in history. He will be known as Leo XIV.

What you need to know

• First American pope: The new pope has been revealed as Robert Prevost of the US, the first American pontiff in history. He’ll be known as Pope Leo XIV. This comes after white smoke billowed above the Sistine Chapel, the signal that cardinals had selected a new pontiff on the second day of the conclave.

• What it took to get elected: There were 133 voting cardinals, who had all been sequestered inside the Vatican during the conclave. Any one of them needed two-thirds of the vote to become the next pope. Take a look at how the voting process works.

Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost of the United States has been elected the 267th pope and will soon step onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica as the new leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.

Prevost, 69, from Chicago, Illinois, is the first ever pope from the United States. He will be known as Leo XIV.

A leader with global experience, he spent much of his career as a missionary in South America and most recently led a powerful Vatican office for bishop appointments. He is expected to build on Pope Francis’ reforms.

He worked for a decade in Trujillo, Peru, and was later appointed bishop of Chiclayo, another Peruvian city, where he served from 2014 to 2023.

In an interview with Vatican News shortly after he became the leader of the Dicastery for Bishops, Prevost said: “I still consider myself a missionary. My vocation, like that of every Christian, is to be a missionary, to proclaim the Gospel wherever one is.”

Considered a highly capable and experienced leader, he serves in the vital role as leader of the powerful Vatican office for bishop appointments, assessing candidates and making recommendations to the pope. Born in Chicago, he is a member of the Augustinian religious order – of which he went on to lead as global superior – and spent many years working in Peru. He was later Bishop of Chicalayo, Peru, before being chosen by Francis to lead the Vatican’s bishop office. While it is often said cardinal electors would always shy away from choosing a pope from the US due to America’s global political influence, Prevost’s long experience in Peru may help mitigate that.