Leo XIV
Who is Leo XIV?
What was Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical?
What does Pope Leo’s encyclical Magnifica humanitas say about AI?
What is Leo XIV known for?
What did Leo XIV do before becoming pope in 2025?
What is Leo XIV’s educational background?
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Leo XIV (born September 14, 1955, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.) is the pope, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. He was elected on May 8, 2025, succeeding Pope Francis and becoming the first American pope in history. An Augustinian friar who performed extensive missionary work in Peru and served as head of the Augustinian order from 2001 to 2013, the former Robert Prevost was made a cardinal by Francis in 2023. He brings a reputation for being a fair, deft administrator and a political moderate, and he is expected to continue his predecessor’s agenda for the church. Within the first year of his pontificate, Leo showed himself to be unafraid of speaking out on such issues as war and the rights of migrants and workers and of reminding the world that his role is that of a peacemaker.
- Birth name: Robert Francis Prevost
- Reign as pope: May 8, 2025–
- Preceded by: Pope Francis
- Quote: “In the era of artificial intelligence, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanization, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human.”—from Magnifica humanitas (2026)
Leo’s vision for the church
In his first address as pope, Leo XIV told the crowd assembled in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, “I am a son of St. Augustine, an Augustinian. He said, ‘With you I am a Christian, for you a bishop.’ So may we all walk together towards that homeland that God has prepared for us.”
Notably, the last pope to choose Leo as a papal name, Leo XIII (reigned 1878–1903), was known for his conciliatory approach to civil governments, for his concern toward renewing a dialogue between the church and the modern world, and for authoring Rerum novarum (1891; “Of New Things), a landmark papal encyclical that addressed the economic and social problems created by the Industrial Revolution and laid down the principles of Catholic social teaching. For Catholics worldwide, the new pope’s choice of a name and his professional history signified that he planned to bring a similar diplomatic and unifying spirit to church divisions and a pastoral approach to issues of social justice.
Indeed, two days after the conclave that elected him, Leo explained his choice of name to the College of Cardinals, noting the historic message of Rerum novarum and its relevance in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). In that address, Leo also asked the cardinals to renew their commitment to the principles of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), which introduced sweeping modernizing changes in the church, and to Pope Francis’s 2013 document Evangelii gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”), which envisions a church that embraces its global diversity and champions the poor.
Family background and education
Hailing from the far South Side of Chicago, Robert Prevost was one of three children born to Louis and Mildred (née Martínez) Prevost, a school principal and a librarian, respectively. Like many Americans, Prevost comes from a background that reflects the diversity of both the United States and the Catholic Church. His family’s roots include Spanish, Cuban, Italian, French Canadian, and African American (Creole) ancestry. His maternal grandparents, who migrated to Chicago from Louisiana, were described in historical records as Black or “mulatto.”
In Chicago, Prevost attended a local Catholic elementary school and served as an altar boy, then entered St. Augustine Seminary High School in Holland, Michigan, graduating in 1973. From there he enrolled in Villanova University near Philadelphia, earning a B.A. in mathematics in 1977. That same year he began his novitiate in the Augustinian order and took his solemn vows four years later. He was ordained a priest in 1982.
Prevost studied at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and received a master’s in divinity in 1982. He then headed to Rome to study canon law at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. He earned a license in canon law in 1984. His doctoral thesis (1987) was on the role of the local prior in the Augustinian order.
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Missionary work in Peru and career in Chicago
Much of Prevost’s career was spent between Peru and Chicago. In 1985 he began missionary work with the Augustinians in Peru, and he was quickly made chancellor (1985–86) of the territorial prelature in Chulucanas. From 1987 to 1988 he served as director of vocations and missions of the Midwest Augustinian Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel in Chicago. Beginning in 1988 he would spend the next decade in Peru as director of an Augustinian seminary in Trujillo. He took on many roles there, including teaching canon law and serving as a parish priest, prefect of the diocesan seminary in Trujillo, and judicial vicar of the Trujillo archdiocese.
In 1999 Prevost returned to Chicago to serve as prior of Our Mother of Good Counsel. His tenure in this role later proved controversial after he allegedly signed off on a decision to allow a priest who had been accused of sexually abusing minors to live in a monastery close to a school. His defenders would later say that he was following the U.S. church’s protocol, which had yet to adopt new standards regarding clergy abuse accusations.
Head of the Augustinians and tenure as bishop and cardinal
Prevost was elected prior general of the entire Augustinian order in 2001, which required him to live in Rome. Serving two terms in this role, he earned a reputation as an effective administrator.
In 2014 Francis appointed Prevost apostolic administrator of the diocese of Chiclayo in Peru, and the following year Prevost was made bishop of the diocese. He also served as second vice president and as a council member of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference from 2018 to 2023. Prevost’s time in Peru at this stage received criticism for what some groups claimed was his mishandling of sexual abuse allegations against two priests. The diocese, however, maintains that he followed correct procedures and that the accusations were investigated. At the same time, he and other Peruvian bishops were seen as a stabilizing force during political upheavals and disagreements between proponents of liberation theology and the conservative Peruvian-based religious group Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV; Sodality of Christian Life). Indeed, the Peruvian Episcopal Conference noted that Prevost played a crucial role in a truth commission that exposed corruption and abuse in the SCV, which was officially dissolved by Pope Francis in April 2025.
After Prevost was elected pope, further questions arose about the legitimacy of the two abuse accusations in Peru. In 2025 one of the alleged victims publicly stated that she was not sure of the motives of the lawyer who had pursued the case and who had ties to the SCV.
In January 2023 Prevost was appointed prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops, a powerful role that put him in charge of selecting bishops around the world. He was also appointed president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. Later that year he was made a cardinal by Francis.
First American pope
A citizen of both the United States and Peru (naturalized in 2015), Leo is the second pope to come from the Western Hemisphere (his predecessor, Pope Francis of Argentina, was the first). Leo’s election as the first pope from the United States is especially historic because it breaks from the traditional view that a papal candidate should not be selected from a global superpower. However, some observers have noted that his dual citizenship and experience working with the poor in Peru could assuage concerns of the United States influencing church governance. (Notably, in 1899 it was another Pope Leo who condemned Americanism, a movement that attempted to reconcile Catholicism and American culture.)
Meanwhile, in his hometown of Chicago, many locals expressed more concern about whether the new pope preferred the Cubs or the White Sox, the city’s rival baseball teams. It was later confirmed that he supports the Sox.
Stance on social issues: From immigration to AI
“I have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the church is here to do.” —Pope Leo XIV, April 2026
Prevost’s election to the papacy in May 2025 was seen by some as a compromise between more liberal and conservative contenders. Although he was less vocal than many other bishops and cardinals in sharing his views, as pope he has expressed strong support of several of Francis’s programs, especially on the issues of protecting the environment and the rights of migrants. Immediately after Leo’s election, his brother John Prevost told The New York Times, “I know he’s not happy with what’s going on with immigration [in the United States]. I know that for a fact. How far he’ll go with it is only one’s guess, but he won’t just sit back. I don’t think he’ll be the silent one.”
Before he was elected pope, Leo posted on social media his criticism of U.S. Vice Pres. JD Vance’s views on Christian doctrine regarding immigration. Earlier in 2025 Vance justified the deportation of immigrants by saying that St. Augustine’s concept of ordo amoris (order of love) puts love of country and family ahead of love of one’s neighbors. Prevost shared a post that called this interpretation wrong.
“The lack of unity is a wound that the church suffers, a very painful one. Divisions and polemics in the church do not help anything. We bishops especially must accelerate this movement toward unity, toward communion in the church.” —Bishop Robert Prevost to Vatican News, May 2023
On other hot-button issues, such as the blessing of same-sex marriages or ordaining women as deacons, the new pope has been more reserved in expressing his support. In a September 2025 interview with Crux magazine, Leo said that while he plans to appoint women to church leadership roles, he does not intend to change church teaching on the issue of ordaining women, noting that there are more pressing concerns to address regarding clericalism and the diaconate. In 2026 Leo followed through on his plans when he appointed Mexican-born broadcasting executive Maria Montserrat Alvarado of EWTN News as prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, making her the first laywoman to lead a Vatican department.
On the subject of LGBTQ+ Catholics and their place in the church, Leo told Crux that the issue is a polarizing one but added, “Everyone’s invited in, but I don’t invite a person in because they are or are not of any specific identity. I invite a person in because they are a son or daughter of God.” Asserting that “individuals will be accepted and received” by the church, he said that church doctrine on the matter is unlikely to change in the near future.
In October 2025 Leo published his first apostolic exhortation, Dilexi te (“I Have Loved You”), which was begun by Francis and addresses the church’s obligation to care for the poor.
By the end of 2025 Leo had made several key appointments to U.S. dioceses. He selected a fellow Chicagoan, Ronald A. Hicks, to replace Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the conservative archbishop of New York City who had announced his retirement, and he appointed Manuel de Jesús Rodríguez, a priest from the Dominican Republic, to serve as bishop of Palm Beach, Florida. Both men were known for taking pro-immigration stances in clashes on the issue between the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Trump administration. Leo also expressed support for a rare “special pastoral message” by the USCCB that called for reform of U.S. immigration laws and procedures.
During the 2025 Christmas season Leo concluded the Jubilee of Hope that was inaugurated by Pope Francis on the previous Christmas. The Holy Year’s final papal mass was celebrated in honor of prisoners, with Leo offering criticism of prison conditions, in particular the problems of overcrowding and insufficient rehabilitation programs.
As he approached his one-year anniversary as pontiff, Leo became the target of criticism by U.S. Pres. Donald Trump, who objected to the pope’s denunciations of the war in Iran that was initiated by the United States and Israel in February 2026. Leo made several calls for peace early in the year. During his Urbi et Orbi blessing on Easter Sunday, he asked world leaders to lay down their weapons, choose peace, and engage in dialogue. Shortly afterward, Trump posted on social media that Leo is “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy” and claimed that the pope “should be thankful” for his election, implying that Leo was selected only because he is an American and because Trump is president. The next day Leo told reporters:
I have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel, which is what I believe I am here to do, what the church is here to do. We are not politicians. We don’t deal with foreign policy with the same perspective [Trump] might understand it, but I do believe in the message of the Gospel, as a peacemaker.
Throughout his early pontificate, Leo frequently returned to the controversial topic of AI. On several occasions he cautioned against its misuse and addressed its possible negative impact on humanity, especially workers. It came as no surprise that his first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity”), offered moral guidance on the use of AI. Along with a call to “disarm” AI and curb its threat to the common good, the encyclical contains a historic apology for the church’s role in slavery, which the pope likened to the “various forms of servitude directly linked to the digital economy.” Leo signed the document on May 15, 2026, the anniversary of the publication of Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum. He unveiled it 10 days later in a public presentation that included Chris Olah, cofounder of the AI company Anthropic, which pledged to work with the pope on building a moral foundation for the future of AI. The pope also created a Vatican commission on AI.
Papal journeys
In November 2025 Leo made his first papal visits—to Turkey, where he commemorated the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea with Eastern Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I, and to Lebanon, where he celebrated mass in Beirut near the site of an explosion in 2020 that had killed more than 200 people. In the first half of 2026 he also visited Monaco, Algeria, Angola, Cameroon, and Equatorial Guinea.
In June the pope visited Spain, including the Sagrada Família in Barcelona to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Antoni Gaudí’s death. (The previous year the architect was made “Venerable,” the first step in being declared a saint.) In July Leo toured Italy and visited the island of Lampedusa, a notable gateway for African and Middle Eastern migrants arriving in Europe by boat. Later in the year he went to France and planned to visit Peru, Argentina, and Uruguay.
Health
In October 2026 Leo was diagnosed with lung cancer, and the lower lobe of his right lung was removed. Several days later he returned to the Vatican and gradually resumed his duties. About a week after his operation, his doctors confirmed that the cancer had not spread and he did not need further treatment.
