Pope Leo XIV
*Pope Leo XIV was born on this date in 1955. He is a Creole head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State.
He was born Robert Francis Prevost at Mercy Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. Known as "Bob" or "Rob" in childhood and to friends as an adult, Prevost was raised in Dolton, Illinois, a suburb bordering Chicago's far South Side. His mother, Mildred Agnes (née Martínez) Prevost, was from a Louisiana Creole family that had moved from the 7th Ward of New Orleans. His father, Louis Marius Prevost, a Chicago native, was a United States Navy veteran of World War II. Prevost has two older brothers, Louis and John. His paternal grandparents were Jean Lanti Prevost, of French and Italian descent, and Suzanne Fontaine, a Frenchwoman. Their maternal grandparents were Hispaniola-born mixed-race Joseph Martínez and New Orleans-born mixed-race Louise Baquiet, a Black Creole.
He grew up in the parish of St. Mary of the Assumption in nearby Riverdale, where he went to school, sang in the choir, and served as an altar boy. From a young age, Prevost aspired to be a priest and would play the Catholic Mass at home with his brothers. From 1969 to 1973, Prevost attended St. Augustine Seminary High School, a minor seminary in Holland, Michigan. He also participated in speech and debate.
Prevost earned a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in mathematics from Villanova University, an Augustinian college, in 1977, a Master of Divinity (MDiv) from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago in 1982, and served as a physics and math teacher at St. Rita of Cascia High School in Chicago during his studies. He earned a Licentiate of Canon Law (JCL) in 1984, followed by a Doctor of Canon Law (JCD) degree in 1987, both from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome. His doctoral thesis was a defense of the role of the local prior in the Order of Saint Augustine. Villanova University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree in 2014.
Prevost's papal name was chosen in honor of Pope Leo XIII; this choice is "clearly a reference to the lives of men and women, to their work even in an age marked by artificial intelligence." According to Cardinal Fernando Chomalí of Chile, Leo told him that the papal name is from his concern about the world's cultural shifts, a Copernican revolution involving artificial intelligence and robotics. Leo explained that "the church offers everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor."
In a May 2023 interview, Prevost stressed the need for prudence and responsibility in using social media to preclude "fueling divisions and controversy" and doing "damage to the communion of the Church." This view is in line with his tendency to speak "with caution and great deliberation" and "steely determination and clarity," as Christopher White, the Vatican correspondent of the National Catholic Reporter, described him. He was elected pope in the 2025 conclave on May 8, following the death and funeral of Pope Francis.
A citizen of the United States by birth and Peru by naturalization, Leo XIV was the first pope from North America, the first from Peru, and the second from the Americas after Francis. He supports Villanova University athletics, especially the Villanova Wildcats men's basketball team.
