Pope Leo XIV
The first American pope is elected on the second day of the conclave.
- When
- Known to
- ± 12 hours
- Era
- Contemporary, Holocene
- Where
- Vatican City · 41.9022° N, 12.4539° E
Robert Prevost, a Chicago-born Augustinian who had spent decades as a missionary and bishop in Peru, was elected on 8 May 2025 and took the name Leo XIV — a reference to Leo XIII, whose 1891 encyclical founded modern Catholic social teaching. He is the first pope from the United States, a possibility long considered ruled out by the geopolitics of the papacy.