The most prominent thing we know about Pope Leo XIV after his victory in the Vatican elections

- Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost of the United States has been elected as the 267th pope and the new leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. Prevost, 69 years old and from Chicago, Illinois, will be the first pope from the United States of America.

He is a leader with global experience, spending most of his career as a missionary in South America and eventually leading the Vatican's powerful office for bishop appointments. It is expected to build on Pope Francis' reforms.

He worked for ten years in Trujillo, Peru, and was later appointed bishop of Chiclayo, another Peruvian city, where he served from 2014 to 2023. Prevost was considered a highly qualified and capable leader, and he recently led the Vatican's powerful office for appointments of new bishops, the Circle of Bishops, to evaluate candidates and make recommendations to the late pope.

He also served as president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. While it is often said that cardinal electors always shy away from choosing a pope from the United States, due to America's enormous global political influence, Prevost's long experience in Peru may have allayed those fears among voters.

Prevost earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Villanova University in Pennsylvania and went on to earn his diploma in theology from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. He was later sent to Rome to study canon law at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas and was ordained a priest in June 1982.

Later in his career, he studied canon law at the seminary in Trujillo, Peru.