The first American pope in history
has been named as Robert Francis Prevost in a landmark conclusion to the Conclave on Thursday.
Prevost, 69, was born in
Chicago,
Illinois and began studying to become a priest with the Catholic Church at the age of 18, before going on to graduate from Villanova University in
Pennsylvania with a degree in mathematics four years later.
He spent much of his early life in South America and also holds Peruvian citizenship, and was said to have been seen as the 'least American of the Americans' who were in the running at the Conclave.
A popular figure in the church who served as the head of Pope Francis' vetting process for new bishop nominations, he has been notably quiet about his views on topics such as women in the clergy and same sex unions.
He waded into
gender ideology while serving as a bishop in Chiclayo, Peru in 2012, saying that 'the promotion of
gender ideology is confusing, because it seeks to create genders that don't exist.'
Following his graduation in Pennsylvania, Prevost first went to Peru in 1985 as a missionary before becoming the Roman Catholic Diocese for the Chulucanas region that same year.
Prevost - also known as Father Bob - returned to work as a pastor in Chicago in 1987 for one year before becoming the head of the Augustinian seminary in Trujillo, Peru - a role he kept for a decade.
In 1998, he was elected as the head of the Augustinian Province of Chicago, making him one of the leading religious figures in the United States.
The man he succeeded to lead the Vatican,
Pope Francis, brought Prevost to
Italy in 2023 and handed him a prominent post heading into the Conclave, a process where cardinals vote in secret to elect the new Pope that was watched in anticipation by millions.
