Catholics around the globe have been eagerly awaiting white smoke to emerge from the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel — and on Thursday, it finally did. The words “Habemus papam” (“We have a pope” in Latin) echoed around St. Peter’s Square and, moments later, the new head of the Catholic Church emerged. Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, the first American pope, took the papal name Leo XIV.

Who Is Pope Leo XIV?

The 69-year-old Prevost was born in Chicago and was ordained a Catholic priest at the age of 26, after having previously studied science and mathematics at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. He quickly earned degrees in Catholic canon law (the laws governing the Catholic Church), culminating in a doctorate in the field in 1987. Throughout much of the 1980s and 90s, Prevost served with a Catholic mission in Peru, before being named the provincial of the Order of St. Augustine (the order of priests to which Prevost belongs) in his native Chicago. Soon afterwards, he was named the prior general of the Augustinians — the head of the order across the world.

In 2014, the late Pope Francis sent Prevost back to Peru, assigning him a year later to serve as bishop of Chiclayo. Prevost was also elevated to a number of committees within the Vatican, including the Congregation for the Clergy, which oversees all Catholic priests not affiliated with a religious order, and the Congregation for Bishops, which vets, interviews, and recommends priests whom the pope might name as bishops. Prevost was later made the head of the Congregation for Bishops and, in 2023, was named a cardinal.

By the time that Prevost was elected pope, he was a member of seven Vatican dicasteries (the current term for official Vatican committees or departments) and the Commission for the Governance (Governatorato) of Vatican City State.

What Can We Expect from Pope Leo XIV?

As a priest, bishop, and cardinal, Prevost has been relatively reserved in his public statements and comments to news media. His position on a broad range of topics is thus largely unknown. For example, the new pope has made no public statements on the controversial Vatican-China accords brokered under the tenure of Pope Francis, which effectively allowed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to have a substantial say in the selection of Catholic bishops and the governance of Catholic parishes and dioceses in China.

However, Prevost was a vocal proponent of “synodality” within the Catholic Church. Synodality is a global process initiated under Pope Francis which, critics have warned, risks turning the Church into a democracy and subverting the hierarchical structure which has been a hallmark of the Catholic Church since its founding. While much of the debate over “synodality” is of intense interest only to Catholics, some priests and bishops have approached the process as an opportunity to promote theologically and morally dissident stances within the Church. For example, bishops in Germany used “synodality” as an excuse to promote blessing same-sex unions and even doing away with priests and bishops as the heads of parishes and dioceses. While Pope Francis nominally condemned such efforts, the German bishops were largely halted by cardinals such as Canadian Marc Ouellet and Prevost himself. Nonetheless, Pope Leo XIV’s first remarks as pontiff laid great emphasis on continuing Pope Francis’s “synodal” vision for the Catholic Church.

When Pope Francis issued “Fiducia Supplicans,” the controversial Vatican guidelines allowing for blessing individuals who happened to be in same-sex relationships without approving the blessing of the relationship itself, Prevost was careful to note that the document allowed for the blessing of individuals as opposed to the approval of relationships that the Catholic Church declares sinful in nature, but did not openly denounce the guidelines. Instead, he recommended that the Vatican defer to Catholic bishops’ conferences at the national level to decided rules and regulations for implementing the guidelines — or even whether to implement them at all.

According to The New York Times, Prevost condemned the LGBT agenda in a 2012 speech, declaring that “sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the gospel,” namely the “homosexual lifestyle” and support for “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children,” were fueled by media and pop culture. He also openly opposed government promotion of “gender ideology,” which he condemned as “confusing, because it seeks to create genders that don’t exist.”

Prevost did align himself with Pope Francis on the issue of climate change, urging Catholics to move “from words to action” on the “harmful” effects of climate change. He has also supported some aspects of immigration and his X feed has included criticism of President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance for their immigration agenda, particularly singling out the Catholic convert Vance. But according to Turning Point USA, Prevost is a registered Republican and has voted in both Republican primaries and general elections when not stationed abroad.

The new pontiff’s name may provide an indication of the direction in which he intends to lead the Catholic Church. The last pope to take the name Leo — Pope Leo XIII — was an outspoken opponent of communism in his 1891 encyclical “Rerum Novarum” and promoted the theology and philosophy of Saints Agustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas. Popes often take the names of predecessors whose pontificates they admire.