White smoke billows from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel where 133 cardinals are gathering on the second day of the conclave to elect a successor to late Pope Francis, at the Vatican, on May 8.Alessandra Tarantino/The Canadian Press
Michael W. Higgins is the Basilian Distinguished Fellow of Contemporary Catholic Thought at the University of Toronto’s St. Michael’s College, and the author of The Jesuit Disruptor: A Personal Portrait of Pope Francis.
The Protodeacon of the College of Cardinals, Dominique Mamberti, emerged onto the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican on Wednesday, intoning the well-worn Latin words traditionally used to announce to the world the new Bishop of Rome: “Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum: Habemus papam!” (“I announce to you a great joy: We have a pope!”)
Not only a new pope, but a surprising one. Robert Francis Prevost – most recently the prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, as well as a former prior-general of the Order of St. Augustine (the Augustinians) – was chosen by his fellow cardinal electors as the supreme pontiff, successor of St. Peter and head of the Vatican City State, among other pontifical titles, dignities and responsibilities. He has chosen as his papal name Leo XIV.
He is a surprising choice. Although his name surfaced in some of the lists of papabili (those considered likely candidates for the papacy), he was not ranked in the first tier. But he has been around for some time doing the kinds of things that position you nicely for the highest leadership of the Roman Catholic Church: pastoral work, missionary experience, comprehensive language skills, oversight of a religious order with extensive global reach, a canon-law doctorate from a Roman pontifical university and senior Vatican governance exposure.
He is a surprising choice as well in that he is an American. The College of Cardinals has been hitherto wary about electing a citizen of the United States to the Petrine Office. That wariness, in part, stems from Rome’s condemnation of the heresy of “Americanism,” as it was called by no less a figure than Leo XIII, who was pope from 1878 to 1903. This “heresy” consisted of ways of thinking that attempted to align American political values and cultural ethos with traditional Roman Catholic tenets and historical practices. In other words, Rome looked askance at various developments in the “new world” that put at peril the integrity of the Catholic tradition. It didn’t help that this new world began with predominantly Protestant, and in some cases virulently anti-Catholic settlements.
Rome’s anti-Americanist sympathies persisted for decades before being laid to rest during the Second Vatican Council, held from 1962 to 1965. Prior to this, there had been a rapid increase in the U.S. Catholic population because of mass immigration from Catholic countries in Europe, which was followed by a rise of confidence in the American Catholic Church as a major player in the political life of the country.
One thing Leo XIV has done already is put a stake in the heart of Leo XIII’s anxiety over American Catholic fidelity to the Holy See. A son of Chicago now calls the shots in the Vatican.
Born to parents of Franco-Italian and Spanish descent, he earned a bachelor of science degree in mathematics from the Augustinian Villanova University in Philadelphia in 1977, the same year that he joined the Augustinians. He was ordained a priest of that order in 1982 and shortly after began a long association with Peru, serving as chancellor of the Territorial Prelature of Chulucanas and eventually heading the Augustinian seminary in Trujillo.
Although he would return to the U.S. to serve as a provincial prior of his order in 1999, and then shortly after be elected as head of the entire order in 2001, he would return to Peru as Bishop of Chiclayo in 2015. He took on additional episcopal responsibilities in the country before being called to Rome in January, 2023, to serve as the head of the bishop-making department in the curial bureaucracy (a very critical and key position in the Vatican hierarchy). In September of the same year, he was created a cardinal by Pope Francis.
Certainly, Francis was impressed by Prevost’s missionary credentials, his easy command of Spanish, his support for the Argentine former pope’s synodality undertaking – a reshaping of the church in keeping with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council – and for his generally irenic personality.
By choosing to take the name Leo – given that Leo XIII was also the pope who ushered in over a century of Catholic social teachings with his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum – Prevost has sent a clear message of papal continuity. He also adroitly avoided feeding the toxicity amongst various Catholic factions by not opting for Benedict XVII or Francis II. By stretching back over a century to the first modern pope, he confirmed his allegiance to Catholic social doctrine without whipping up hostilities between the Bergoglio (Francis) and Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) camps.
Leo XIII is best known for his revival and endorsement of the philosophical and theological thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, and his championing of labourers and their rights in industrial Europe. His condemnation of Americanism is more of a historical footnote, but still, Prevost’s election is a sweet vindication of the pastoral fecundity and ardour of American Catholics.
It is also more than that. By choosing an American with international exposure, a refined social-justice sensitivity, a commitment to the priorities of Francis regarding socio-economic inequity, global migration and the evils of ethno-nationalism, the cardinals have set up on the Tiber an antidote to the insularity and intolerance on the Potomac. A true bridge builder, or Pontifex Maximus.
But I suspect that there is a more conservative streak in Leo XIV than Francis. The fact that he chose to wear the traditional papal regalia when he first appeared on the balcony, in sharp contrast with Francis’s eschewing of the elaborate apostolic stole, is more than a fashion statement. He likely will be more conventionally papal in his behaviour.
The election of the first American pope is an electric moment, and not just for the Catholic Church. However, the proof will be in the papal pudding, as it were, and we will see in the months to come the direction in which the 267th pope will lead us.