Pope Leo XIV Biography: Early Life, Career & Honor
Pope Leo XIV (born Robert Francis Prevost on September 14, 1955) is the leader of the Catholic Church and the sovereign of Vatican City. He is the first pope born in the United States, the first to hold both American and Peruvian citizenship, the first from the Order of Saint Augustine, and the second (after his immediate predecessor Pope Francis) from the Americas.
Prevost’s victory in the 2025 conclave surprised onlookers; he was a dark horse contender, with Vatican officials dismissing the idea of a pope from the United States as implausible given its stature as a superpower.
Prevost chose the papal name Leo XIV in honor of Pope Leo XIII, who developed modern Catholic social teaching during the tumult of the Second Industrial Revolution—both to echo Leo XIII’s concern for workers and fairness, and to respond to the challenges of a new industrial revolution and the advent
Pope Leo XIV Biography
Robert Francis Prevost was born on September 14, 1955, in Mercy Hospital in Chicago’s Bronzeville district, on the city’s south side. He’s of French, Italian, Spanish, and Louisiana Creole origin. His father, Louis Marius Prevost, was a Chicago native who grew up in Hyde Park. Louis’ parents were immigrants from Italy and France, respectively.
Louis Prevost was a World War II US Navy veteran who led an infantry landing craft during the Normandy invasion and later participated in Operation Dragoon in southern France. He began his career as an educator and eventually became superintendent of Brookwood School District 167 in Glenwood, Illinois.
Mildred Agnes Prevost (née Martínez), Leo XIV’s mother, was born in Chicago to a mixed-race Black Creole family from Louisiana. She was also an instructor and librarian, serving at Mendel Catholic High School. Prevost finished his undergraduate studies at Villanova University, where he received his Bachelor of Science in mathematics in 1977.
Prevost then received a master of Divinity degree from Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union in 1982, and he was ordained a priest the following year. He later received licentiate and doctorate degrees in canon law from the Pontifical College of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.
Career
Prevost spent much of his career in both Peru and Chicago. In 1985, he began missionary work with the Augustinians in Peru, and he was immediately appointed chancellor of the local prelature in Chulucanas.
From 1987 to 1988, he was director of vocations and missions for the Midwest Augustinian Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel in Chicago. Beginning in 1988, he would spend the next decade in Peru as the director of an Augustinian seminary in Trujillo.
He filled a variety of duties there, including teaching canon law and acting as a parish priest, prefect of the diocesan seminary in Trujillo, and judicial vicar of the Trujillo archdiocese.
In 1999, Prevost returned to Chicago to become prior of Our Mother of Good Counsel. His stay in this position later became contentious as he allegedly approved a decision to let a priest accused of sexually abusing youngsters to live in a monastery near a school.
His supporters would later claim that he was following US church practice, which had yet to adopt new guidelines for priest abuse allegations.
Prevost was elected prior general of the entire Augustinian order in 2001, which obliged him to reside in Rome. He established himself as an accomplished administrator over his two tenures in this position.
In 2014, Francis appointed Prevost as apostolic administrator of Peru’s diocese of Chiclayo, and the following year, he was named bishop. From 2018 until 2023, he also served as the Peruvian Episcopal Conference’s second vice president and council member.
Prevost’s stint in Peru at this point was criticised by several groups for how he handled sexual abuse charges against two priests. However, the diocese believes that he followed proper protocols and that the charges were thoroughly probed.
At the same time, he and other Peruvian bishops were viewed as a stabilising force during political upheavals and tensions between supporters of liberation theology and the conservative Peruvian religious group Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV; Sodality of Christian Life).
Indeed, the Peruvian Episcopal Conference stated that Prevost played an important role in a truth commission that discovered corruption and abuse in the SCV, which Pope Francis officially abolished in April 2025.
Following Prevost’s election as pope, fresh questions were raised about the credibility of the two abuse allegations in Peru. In 2025, one of the claimed victims publicly stated that she was unsure of the motives of the lawyer who was prosecuting the case and had ties to the SCV.
Prevost was appointed head of the Roman Curia’s Dicastery for Bishops in January 2023, a prestigious position that placed him in charge of appointing bishops from all over the world. He was also named president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.
Later that year, Francis elevated him to cardinal. By the end of 2025, Leo had made numerous important appointments to US dioceses. He picked Ronald A. Hicks, a fellow Chicagoan, to succeed Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the conservative archbishop of New York City who had announced his retirement, and appointed Manuel de Jesús Rodríguez, a priest from the Dominican Republic, to serve as bishop of Palm Beach, Florida.
Both men were known for advocating pro-immigrant positions during confrontations between the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Trump administration.
Honors
Leo with King Charles III and Queen Camilla on the King’s visit to the Vatican in October 2025. In 2014, Villanova gave him an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree. In 2025, Time magazine named Leo one of the world’s 100 most significant persons in artificial intelligence.
King Charles III made Leo an Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath on October 23, 2025, during the King’s state visit to the Holy See. At the same time, Leo took the position as Papal Confrater of St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle.
Social Media
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