Breaking: Cardinal Robert Prevost Named Pope Leo XIV, First American Pope in History

Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was elected by the College of Cardinals to succeed Pope Francis on Thursday, taking the name Pope Leo XIV.

Prevost, 69, is a native of Chicago. He is the 267th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and the first American Pope in the Church’s history.

The new Pope was selected by a group of 133 cardinals, the highest number ever convened for a papal conclave. In the sacred process, members of the College of Cardinals who are under the age of 80 vote in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel to select the man who will lead the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. A two-thirds majority of Cardinals is required to select the new Pope.

The papal conclave convened weeks after Pope's Francis’s death to quickly select the next head of the Church. An estimated 30,000 people gathered around St. Peter’s Square in an attempt to bear witness to the top-secret process by watching the smoke coming out of the Sistine Chapel’s chimney.

On Wednesday, black smoke came out of the chimney, signifying that a new Pope had not been elected after the first vote. The second and third votes occurred Thursday morning and black smoke came up from the chimney again.

As the White smoke rose from the Sistine Chapel, Catholics came together to announce Habemus Papam, Latin for “we have a Pope,” as they awaited the 267th Pope to address the faithful from the balcony at St. Peter’s Basilica. Lay Catholics watching at St. Peter’s Square could be seen waving flags from countries across the globe, signifying the Church’s significance and universality worldwide.

The conclave was expected to go multiple rounds after the group of Cardinals from all around the world spent the days leading up to the Conclave holding talks and getting to know each other. Historically an Italian-dominated institution, the college of Cardinals features clergymen from countries worldwide, many of whom had not participated in a papal conclave before.

There were several reported frontrunners to replace the late Pope Francis, who was elected in 2013: Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle from the Phillipines; Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who has served as the Vatican's Secretary of State for the last 12 years; and traditionalist Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdo.

Parolin, a top aide to Francis, was considered the leading candidate for the papacy, despite his role in negotiating the Vatican’s controversial agreement with the Chinese Communist Party over clergy appointments. Cardinal Joseph Zen, 93, Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong and outspoken CCP critic, has strongly criticized the Vatican’s agreement with China.

Pope Francis, who was elected in 2013, died at 88 just one day after Easter Sunday following an extended battle with a complex respiratory infection. He ultimately suffered a cerebral stroke that caused irreversible heart failure on Easter Monday. Pope Francis’s death led to a period of mourning among Catholics, who reflected on the end of the Holy Father’s earthy live and what they believe to be the beginning of his eternal life.

The cardinal electors were tasked with choosing a successor to Francis who would inherit some of the same challenges Francis dealt with throughout his Pontificate. Under Pope Francis, the Church grappled with sexual abuse scandals, financial complications, divisions on doctrine and liturgy, and declining numbers of western faithful as Catholicism spread rapidly throughout Africa.

During his pontificate, Pope Francis often drew the ire of more traditionalist Catholics with his outreach to the LGBT community and his hostility towards the Traditional Latin Mass. Traditionalists also criticized Pope Francis’s perceived ambiguity on matters of Church doctrine, especially LGBT issues. The Latin Mass remains a pressing issue for the Church and a major question for the new Pope, due to the contrasting approaches between the late Popes Benedict XVI and Francis.

Pope Francis led the Church in its response to a number of high-profile sexual misconduct scandals involving clergy, including that of deceased former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who sexually abused adult male seminarians and minors for decades.

The late pontiff also called for modern nations to end the use of the death penalty, revising the Catechism of the Catholic Church to reflect his position, and placed an emphasis on helping the poor and immigrants. Reflecting the Pope’s international significance, Francis advocated for diplomatic solutions to geopolitical issues and armed conflict, including the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza.