On May 8, 2025, the Catholic Church elected its new pope, and for the first time in history, an American sits in the chair of St. Peter.
Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, O.S.A. was elected among his fellow brother cardinals to the papacy, taking the new Pope Leo XIV.
Get to know the new pontiff and learn how you can pray for and with him.
Pope Leo XIV – Early Life
Pope Leo XIV was born Robert Francis Prevost on September 14, 1955, in Chicago, Illinois, to parents Louis and Millie.
His father was an educator; his mother, a librarian. He and his two older brothers grew up heavily involved in their parish.
Early on, he felt a calling to the priesthood.
“And, even as a young teenager, he knew what he wanted to do and where he wanted to go,” said a childhood friend.
He attended St. Augustine Seminary High School in Philadelphia and later graduated from Villanova with a Bachelors of Science.
Pope Leo XIV’s Religious Life
In 1977, at 22, he entered the novitiate of the Order of St. Augustine (Augustinians) and later made his vows in 1981.
Before long, Pope Leo XIV began what would end up being a major hallmark of his time as a priest: service to the people of Peru.
Beginning in 1985, he worked as a missionary in Chulucanas, Peru, a small town in the northwestern part of the South American country. A few years later, he began a decade-long stint in Trujillo, Peru, a coastal city.
Ever obedient to the assignments he was given, the then-Robert Francis Prevost returned to Chicago in 1999 and two years later became the Prior General of the Augustinians, the superior over the entire order.
In 2015, he returned to Peru after Pope Francis made him Bishop of Chiclayo, one of Peru’s largest cities, with more than a million people in the diocese. Pope Francis visited Peru in 2018 and spent time with Bishop Robert Francis Prevost. In 2023, Pope Francis called him to Rome to serve as the Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops.
Now, he serves as the Bishop of Rome, responsible for the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
Pope Leo XIV’s Spirituality
Pope Leo XIV’s spirituality is shaped by the fact that he’s an Augustinian, following in the footsteps of St. Augustine.
“We as Augustinians, again as a mendicant order, I think are called to live in a simple life at the service of others and in a special way to reach out to those who are poor, the poor in society today which includes of course those who are monetarily poor but there are many other kinds of poverty in today’s world,” he said in an interview years ago.
He also talks about how experiencing God must involve others. Experiencing God is not an individual activity.
“It’s not just about me and my experience of God, either. You might have people say, ‘Well, I have an experience of God, and I don’t have to do anything else.’ Well then, that’s probably not an authentic experience of God, because as we know from the Gospels, as we know from the Apostolic letters, if you love God, you also need to be showing that by loving your neighbor, and the two go hand-in-hand,” he said in a 2012 interview.
Pope Leo: The Name
Pope Leo XIV’s predecessor in name was Pope Leo XIII, pope from 1878 to 1903, one of the longest papacies in history.
Pope Leo XIII is considered the “Father of Social Doctrine,” shaping the future of Catholic social teaching that followed.
He was also known as the “Pope of the Workers,” thanks to his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum.
In choosing this name, Pope Leo XIV could be showing a commitment to the working class and the poor, consistent with the Augustinian charisms.
Pope Leo XIV Quotes
Here are some inspirational quotes from Pope Leo XIV before he became pope:
- “The bishop is not supposed to be a little prince sitting in his kingdom. But rather called authentically to be humble, to be close to the people he serves, to walk with them, to suffer with them, and to look for ways that he can better live the Gospel message in the midst of his people.”
- “We are often preoccupied with teaching doctrine, the way of living our faith, but we risk forgetting that our first task is to teach what it means to know Jesus Christ and to bear witness to our closeness to the Lord. This comes first: to communicate the beauty of the faith, the beauty and joy of knowing Jesus. It means that we ourselves are living it and sharing this experience.”
- “We can all be missionaries of the Gospel.”
- “The fundamental thing for every disciple of Christ is humility.”
Pope Leo XIV Addresses The World for the First Time
In his first Urbi et Orbi address as the Successor of Peter, Pope Leo XIV spoke of the love and peace that comes from God.
This is the peace of the Risen Christ, a disarming and humble and preserving peace. It comes from God. God, who loves all of us, without any limits or conditions. Let us keep in our ears the weak but always brave voice of Pope Francis, who blessed Rome – the Pope who blessed Rome and the world that day on the morning of Easter.
Allow me to continue that same blessing. God loves us, all of us, evil will not prevail. We are all in the hands of God. Without fear, united, hand in hand with God and among ourselves, we will go forward. We are disciples of Christ, Christ goes before us, and the world needs His light. Humanity needs Him like a bridge to reach God and His love. You help us to build bridges with dialogue and encounter so we can all be one people always in peace.
Read his full address here
Prayers for Pope Leo XIV
Pray for Pope Leo XIV, or pray in the Augustinian tradition from which he comes, with some of these prayers.
Holy Spirit Prayer of St. Augustine:
Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, That my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy Spirit, That my work, too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, That I love but what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, To defend all that is holy. Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, That I always may be holy.
Pray the St. Rita Novena. St. Rita was an Augustinian Nun who was canonize by Pope Leo XIII.
Pray the St. Monica Novena. St. Monica, mother of Augustine, is a remarkable model of faith.
Pray this simple prayer for Pope Leo XIV’s papacy:
Heavenly Father, You have entrusted Pope Leo XIV with Christ’s Church. Bless him, protect him, keep his heart soft amid the stresses and challenges he will undoubtedly face, so that he’s open to the Spirit guiding him–and all of us–towards the future of the Church, a future that sees us loving more deeply and treating those around us with greater charity, in the spirit of Augustine. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.
Pray for the New Pope on Hallow
Join thousands of Catholics around the world in praying for the new pope on Hallow.