By Francesca Hangeior
Formerly Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, he hails from the United States and is the first American to be elected pope in the history of the Roman Catholic Church.
A member of the Augustinian order and former Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, Pope Leo XIV brings decades of pastoral and administrative experience to the papacy.
He is a moderate who was close to Pope Francis and spent years as a missionary in Peru, he becomes the Catholic Church’s 267th pontiff, taking the papal name Leo XIV.