The Conclave has elected Robert Francis Cardinal Prevost as the 267th Bishop of Rome. The new pope was announced to the waiting crowds by Cardinal Protodeacon Dominique Mamberti.
Annuntio vobis gaudium:
HABEMUS PAPAM
Eminentissimum ac reverendissimum Dominum Robertum Franciscum
Sanctae Romane Ecclesiae Cardinalem Prevostqui sibi nomen imposuit Leo XIV
I announce to you a great joy:
WE HAVE A POPE
The Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord Robert FrancisCardinal of the Holy Roman Church Prevostwho has taken the name Leo XIV
Just a few moments ago, from the central loggia of Saint Peter’s Basilica, Cardinal Protodeacon Dominique Mamberti pronounced the formula “Habemus Papam,” proclaiming to the city of Rome and to the whole world the news of the election of Robert Francis Cardinal Prevost as Pope Leo XIV
Leo XIV – Second Pope from the Americas
The first Augustinian Pope, Robert Prevost – now Leo XIV – is the second Roman Pontiff from the Americas after Pope Francis.
However, unlike Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the 69-year-old Robert Francis Prevost is from the northern part of the American continent, though he spent many years as a missionary in Peru before being elected head of the Augustinians for two consecutive terms
First Augustinian PopeThe new Bishop of Rome was born on September 14, 1955, in Chicago, Illinois, to 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 in 1977 he earned a Degree in Mathematics and also studied Philosophy.
On September 1 of the same year, he entered the novitiate of the Order of Saint Augustine (O.S.A.) in Saint Louis, in the Province of Our Lady of Good Counsel of Chicago, and made his first profession on September 2, 1978.
On August 29, 1981, he made his solemn vows.He received his theological education at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.
At the age of 27, he was sent by his superiors to Rome to study Canon Law at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum).
In Rome, he was ordained a priest on June 19, 1982, at the Augustinian College of Saint Monica by Monsignor Jean Jadot, then Pro-President of the Pontifical Council for Non-Christians, now the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue.
Prevost obtained his licentiate in 1984; and the following year, while preparing his doctoral thesis, was sent to the Augustinian mission in Chulucanas, Piura, Peru (1985–1986).
In 1987, he defended his doctoral thesis on “The Role of the Local Prior in the Order of Saint Augustine” and was appointed vocation director and missions director of the Augustinian Province of “Mother of Good Counsel” in Olympia Fields, Illinois (USA).
SOURCE: Vatican News
