In May of 2025, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost (Leo) became the newest Pope following the death of Pope Francis in April of 2025. After careful consideration and close review from the College of Cardinals, on May fourth the Sistine Chapel emitted smoke while bells rang from St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican city, signifying the election of a new Pope.
The Cardinals officially announced Pope Leo XVI from the Vatican in Rome, Italy. Born and raised in the south side of Chicago, Illinois, at sixty-nine years old, Pope Leo became the first American Pope in the history of the Catholic Church. Graduating from Villanova University in Villanova, Pennsylvania in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in science and mathematics, Leo became the first Augustinian friar elected pontiff. As the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Leo intends to focus on specific issues such as church unity, championing migrants and the marginalized, gaining personnel as pastors, assisting in creating peace between countries in war such as Ukraine and Russia and Israel and Palestine, speaking out on artificial intelligence, and finances within the Vatican. Pope Leo’s long term goals include unity and healing divisions within the church and state along with entering missionary conversation and conversations relating to the world’s most pressing problems such as war and social conversations.
As Pope Leo XVI entered office in May of 2025, he took a unique approach; instead of entering the church and reigning complete and utter power, despite possessing the power to do so, he instead listened and maintained an open and friendly personality, shifting the dynamic past Popes created and working to create a new name and face for the Catholic Church.
