His Holiness Pope Leo XIV
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Pope Leo XIV (born Robert Francis Prevost, September 14, 1955) is head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State. He was elected in the 2025 papal conclave as the successor to Pope Francis.
Born and raised in the Chicago area, in the Midwestern American state of Illinois, Prevost became a friar of the Order of Saint Augustine in 1977 and was ordained as a priest in 1982. His service has included extensive missionary work in Peru in the 1980s and 1990s, where he variously served as a parish pastor, diocesan official, seminary teacher, and administrator. Elected prior general of the Order of Saint Augustine from 2001 to 2013, he later returned to Peru as Bishop of Chiclayo from 2015 to 2023. In 2023, Pope Francis appointed him prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, and made him a cardinal the same year.
In Rome, Pope Leo XIV, is known as il Papa, which means Father. The pope is the Bishop of Rome and the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church. He lives in Vatican City, which is a municipality inside the city of Rome.
