Leo XIV
Pope Leo XIV was born Robert Francis Prevost on 14 September 1955 in Chicago, Illinois — the first pope born in the United States. A member of the Order of Saint Augustine, which he entered in 1977, he is also the first Augustinian to hold the papacy. He spent much of his ministry as a missionary in Peru, becoming a naturalized Peruvian citizen in 2015 and serving as Bishop of Chiclayo from 2015 to 2023, so he holds dual U.S.–Peruvian citizenship.
In 2023 Pope Francis named him Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and made him a cardinal. He was elected the 267th pope on 8 May 2025, on the fourth ballot of the conclave, taking the name Leo. He explained it as a deliberate echo of Leo XIII, whose Rerum Novarum (1891) met the social question of the industrial revolution — signalling his intent to apply the Church's social teaching to a new age marked by artificial intelligence.
He is barely a year on the throne, and the traditional Catholic watches with hope and caution both. The early signs are mixed. Leo has not lifted Traditionis Custodes, keeping for now his predecessor’s restrictions on the old Mass — yet he has called the division over the liturgy ‘a painful wound,’ and asked for ‘the generous inclusion of those sincerely attached’ to the ancient rite. That is a warmer voice than the decree it inherits.
An Augustinian who took his name from Leo XIII, he seems set upon the social question and the age of artificial intelligence. Where he will stand on Tradition, time has not yet told.
Too early to judge — but the door he found half-closed, he has not yet chosen to open or to bolt. We are watching.