Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost of the United States was elected as the pope of the Catholic Church on Thursday, taking the name Leo XIV.
Beginning on Wednesday, 133 cardinals gathered to select the new head of the church. To qualify as an elector, a cardinal must be below the age of 80; of the 252 current cardinals, 135 qualify, but two are abstaining. They took only a little more than one day to elect Prevost, a native of Chicago. He is the first American pope.
Conclaves typically attract thousands of people to St. Peter’s Square, where they wait for the plume of white smoke to emerge from a chimney at the Sistine Chapel that signals that a new pope has been chosen. This particular conclave has garnered particular interest in part due to an acclaimed 2024 Hollywood film about the intensely secretive event.
In the lead-up to the conclave, there were no clear frontrunners for the papacy, as more than a dozen names were floated as potential contenders in news reports.
The election of the new pontiff follows the death of Pope Francis, who died on April 21, one day after making his last public appearance on Easter Sunday. As pope, Leo XIV will confront the numerous challenges facing the church today, including on issues concerning LGBTQ Catholics, the role of women in the church, Catholicism’s growth in Asia and Africa, and the church’s sordid history of sexual abuse by the clergy. President Donald Trump congratulated Prevost in a post on Truth Social. “It is such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope,” he wrote. “What excitement, and what a Great Honor for our Country. I look forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV. It will be a very meaningful moment!”
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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