I’m an editor on The Morning.
“The idea of an American pope was unimaginable for generations,” Jason Horowitz, our Rome bureau chief, noted yesterday. Why would church leaders pick a pope from a global superpower that shapes world affairs?
Yet the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel chose Robert Francis Prevost, a 69-year-old Chicago native, as the 267th pope of the Roman Catholic Church. He has adopted the papal name Leo XIV. He’s the first American to hold the job.
Prevost has lived outside the U.S. for much of his life, and many in the Vatican view him as a churchman who transcends borders, Jason wrote. Today’s newsletter will guide you through The Times’s coverage of the new pope and his views.
Chicago to Peru
Prevost grew up in a suburb just south of Chicago. His father was a school principal. His mother, a librarian, was deeply involved in their local Catholic parish, St. Mary of the Assumption, on the city’s Far South Side. His maternal grandparents were Creole people of color who moved north from New Orleans.
Julie Bosman, our Chicago bureau chief, interviewed Father William Lego, who has known Prevost since high school. “They picked a good man,” he said. “He had a good sense of right and wrong, always working with the poor.”