The Catholic Patriotic Minute #10: Pope Leo XIV
Catholics For Catholics Special Edition | September 8th, 2025
Pope Leo XIV: The First North American Pope
When the white smoke emerged from the chimney above the Sistine Chapel on May 8, 2025, millions of people around the world set their eyes on the Loggia of the Blessings, the balcony that faces St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, waiting to find out which cardinal was elected the 267th Pope. Over an hour later, the first pope from the United States walked onto the balcony.
On September 14, 1955, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Robert Prevost was born in Chicago, Illinois. The Prevost family were active members of Saint Mary of the Assumption Church in Chicago. Both of his brothers, Louis and John, confirmed that Prevost always wanted to be a priest and would even pretend to celebrate Mass starting at the age of four or five. In an audience with 600 children on July 3, 2025, Pope Leo recounted that, starting at the age of six, he would serve at Mass at 6:30 before school. He explained, “[S]erving Mass was always something I really liked, because already when I was young they had taught us that Jesus is always close, that our best friend is always Jesus, and that in the Mass it was a way to find, we could say, this friend, to be with Jesus, even before receiving First Communion.”
In 1969, Prevost left home to discern and study at the Minor Seminary of the Augustinian Fathers in Michigan. Then, from 1973 to 1977, he studied mathematics and philosophy at Villanova University. Prevost joined the Order of Saint Augustine in St. Louis, and he professed his solemn vows on August 29, 1981. Prevost was ordained a priest on June 19, 1982, at the Augustinian College of Saint Monica in Rome.
Father Prevost studied Canon Law, receiving his doctorate in 1987. In the same year, he was selected as vocation and missions director of the Augustinian Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel, and in 1988, he went with the mission to Trujillo, Peru. There, from 1988 to 1999, Father Prevost served as a prior and formation director for the Augustinian community, as well as a professor of Canon Law, Patristics, and Moral Theology.
Father Prevost left Peru for Chicago, in 1999, because he was picked as the Provincial Prior of the Augustinian Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel. Shortly after, he was elected as the Prior General of the Order of Saint Augustine, a role he performed in Rome from 2001 to 2013. As Prior General, Father Prevost was the supreme authority of the international Augustinian Order. Pope Francis appointed Father Prevost as Bishop of Chiclayo, a Peruvian diocese, on September 26, 2015. On January 30, 2023, Pope Francis made Prevost an Archbishop by giving him the role of Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops. In this position, Archbishop Prevost helped Pope Francis in the appointments of bishops and in matters regarding the exercise of the bishop’s office. On September 30 of the same year, the Pope made him a Cardinal.
From his days as an altar server to his time as a Cardinal, Cardinal Prevost truly understood the significance of pursuing a friendship with Christ. For Prevost, St. Augustine and his book, Confessions, guided him through this pursuit. In response to a question of how Augustine influenced his everyday life, the Cardinal said that Augustine emphasized that the only way to be a follower of Christ is to be a part of the Catholic Church. To encounter Christ and experience a relationship with Him, one must be in full communion with Him in His Church. In a 2012 interview, Father Prevost further explained Augustine’s stance on how to encounter Christ, “[h]uman experience, [Augustine] says, is precisely where you can find God.” He elaborated,
Augustine [helps] people understand that having an experience of God brings you far beyond yourself and includes that dimension of . . . human solidarity, of understanding the universal brotherhood, sisterhood of men and women and that how an authentic experience of happiness has to include other people and has to include being concerned about other people. . . [A]s we know from the apostolic letters, if you love God then you also need to be showing that by loving your neighbor and that the two go hand in hand.
Even after Cardinal Prevost becomes the next papal successor, seeking the friendship of Christ remains as one of his common encouragements for Christians.
On Easter Monday, 2025, Pope Francis passed away, and the conclave began on May 7, 2025. During the second day of the conclave with the fourth ballot, the College of Cardinals elected Cardinal Prevost to be the 267th Pope. When he walked onto the Loggia of Blessings to welcome his flock, Pope Leo XIV smiled and appeared to hold back tears. His first greeting was,
Peace be with you all! Dear brothers and sisters, these are the first words spoken by the risen Christ, the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for God’s flock. I would like this greeting of peace to resound in your hearts, in your families, among all people, wherever they may be, in every nation and throughout the world. . . A peace that is unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering. A peace that comes from God, the God who loves us all, unconditionally.
Throughout his first address, the Holy Father called for the Catholic Church to pursue and embrace this peace, which has its beginning in God, as well as charity. He said he hopes for the Church “always seeks to be close above all to those who are suffering.” On day one, Pope Leo made it clear that a pillar of his pontificate will be the defense of the vulnerable.
On May 14, 2025, in his address to the Oriental Churches, the Pope shed light on the persecution of Eastern Christians. He asserted the need for peace in this time when conflicts such as the Russia-Ukraine War and Israel-Palestine War are ongoing. He offered to mediate, by announcing, “The Holy See is always ready to help bring enemies together, face to face, to talk to one another, so that peoples everywhere may once more find hope and recover the dignity they deserve, the dignity of peace.” Pope Leo’s defense of human dignity even takes root in the name he choose. On May 10, 2025, he explained that one of the main reasons for his name was “because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution” and that currently the Church is responding to “another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour.”
As for the Church of Rome as a whole, Pope Leo desires for a revival of mystery, penance, and veneration of God in the Roman liturgy. And, he seeks out this revival by calling for unity between the East and West. In his address to the Oriental Churches, the Pope exhorted,
The contribution that the Christian East can offer [the Church] today is immense! We have great need to recover the sense of mystery that remains alive in your liturgies, liturgies that engage the human person in his or her entirety, that sing of the beauty of salvation and evoke a sense of wonder at how God’s majesty embraces our human frailty! It is likewise important to rediscover, especially in the Christian West, a sense of the primacy of God, the importance of mystagogy and the values so typical of Eastern spirituality: constant intercession, penance, fasting, and weeping for one’s own sins and for those of all humanity.
One devotion Pope Leo XIV carries from his days as an Augustinian to his life as Pope is his devotion to Our Lady of Good Counsel. Two days after his election, the Pope left Rome to visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Lazio. Here, he noted the trust he has for Our Lady of Good Counsel and that she was his companion of “light and wisdom.” Interestingly enough, Pope Leo XIII included the title, “Mother of good counsel,” to the Litany of Loreto in 1903.
Once the election of Pope Leo XIV was announced, his brother Louis shared, “We used to tease him all the time — you’re going to be the pope one day.” Yet, the two roles Pope Leo pursued since his childhood were those of priest and friend of God. On August 3, 2025, the Holy Father
pointed out that the first two saints that he is canonizing on September 7, 2025, that is, Blessed Carlo Acutis and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, lived out their lives as friends of God. He encouraged Catholics, “let us remain in His friendship, always, cultivating it through prayer, adoration, Eucharistic Communion, frequent Confession, and generous charity.” We pray for the pontificate of Pope Leo XIV, as he guides his flock to encountering Jesus Christ here on earth.
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