President Donald Trump hailed the election of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost as the pope, the first US national ever to be head of the Catholic Church, and said he looked forward to meeting him.
“It is such an honour to realise that he is the first American Pope. What excitement, and what a Great Honor for our Country,” Trump said in a social media post on Thursday. “I look forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV. It will be a very meaningful moment!”
Prevost, who will go by the name of Leo XIV, is seen by Vatican watchers as someone who could have a good rapport with Trump, but who may also clash with the president over migration. Prevost, 69, was born in Chicago but spent much of his life outside the US, mostly in Peru and Rome.
He was elected on the second day of voting at the Vatican. The closed-door election, known as a conclave, began Wednesday when the 133 elector cardinals were locked into the chapel to begin the voting process aimed at finding a successor to Pope Francis, who died in April. Throughout the process, the cardinals had no contact with the outside world and were not allowed to leave until there was an agreement.
Trump, who joked that he would like to be pope, had pointed to Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, as his choice for the papacy. Trump drew criticism from Catholics, including Dolan, after posting an AI-generated image of himself dressed as pope.
The new pope inherits a church that is facing internal strife between progressive and conservative factions on topics from divorce to LGBTQ+ issues, as well as external factors such as trade disputes, migration and wars in Ukraine and the Middle East — challenges he will need to navigate.
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Those factors made the election all the more significant as Catholics and non-Catholics alike awaited the outcome.
Leo XIV follows another historic figure in the role, Francis, who was the first Latin American pope. Francis had taken an inclusive approach to the church, opening discussions on topics generally considered off limits such as the role of women and by seeking to be more open to LGBTQ+ Catholics.
Prevost is seen as offering a bridge between the Church’s more moderate and hardline factions. He is known for his governance experience, pragmatism and has experience of the inner workings of the Vatican. A graduate of Villanova University, he also received a doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome, and speaks Spanish and Italian.
