Who is Pope Leo XIV and why does he overcome a taboo against a US pontiff?

 Extract from ABC News

• Topic:Religious Leaders

29 minutes ago

Pope Leo XIV appears on the central loggia of St Peter's Basilica after being chosen the 267th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, at the Vatican. (AP: Alessandra Tarantino)

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Robert Prevost — the first pontiff born in the United States — has elected to become Pope Leo XIV.

Pope Francis brought Prevost to the Vatican in 2023 as the powerful head of the office that vets bishop nominations, one of the most important jobs in the Catholic Church.

Pope Leo XIV, 69, had been a leading candidate for the papacy.

The prospect of a US pope had long been taboo, given the country's significant geopolitical power.

The Chicago native evoked his broad experience in his first public remarks as pope, speaking in Italian, then switching to Spanish, and saying not a word in English as he addressed the crowd in Saint Peter's Square.

White smoke billows from the Sistine Chapel to announce the election of Pope Leo XIV.

He had prominence going into the conclave that few other cardinals have.

Prevost was twice elected prior general, or top leader, of the Augustinians, the 13th-century religious order founded by St Augustine. 

He served as the administrator and later archbishop of Chiclayo in 2024 and acquired Peruvian citizenship in 2015. 

A low profile in Rome

In that job, he would have kept in regular contact with the Catholic hierarchy in the part of the world that counts the most Catholics.

Ever since arriving in Rome, Prevost has kept a low public profile, but he was well known to the men who count.

Prevost presided over one of the most revolutionary reforms Francis made, when he added three women to the voting bloc that decides which bishop nominations to forward to the pope. 

The bells of the cathedral in Lima, Peru's capital, tolled after Prevost's election was announced. People outside the church expressed their desire for a papal visit at one point.

Born in Chicago in 1955, Prevost joined the Order of St Augustine in 1977. 

He attended Villanova University near Philadelphia, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1977, and later earned a Master of Divinity degree from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago in 1982.

AP