Who is Robert Presses, the new Pope Leo XIV?

Even before his name was announced by the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, the crowds below chanted “Viva Il Papa” – to live the pope.

The 69 -year -old Robert Ostost will be the 267th inhabitant of St. Peter’s throne and he will be known as Leo XIV.

He will be the first American to play the role of the Pope, although he is considered so much a Cardinal from Latin America because of the many years he spent as a missionary in Peru before becoming an archbishop there.

He has Peruvian nationality and is remembered with courtesy as a figure who works with marginalized communities and helps to build bridges in the local church.

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Born in Chicago in 1955, Prevost served as an altar boy and was ordained a priest in 1982.

In his first words like Pope, Leo XIV spoke kindly about his predecessor Francis.

“We still hear the weak, but the always bold voice of Pope Francis, who blessed us,” he said.

“United and hand in hand with God, let us progress together,” he said in merry crowds.

He told the crowd to listen to St. Peter that he was a member of the Order of Augustine. He was 30 when he moved to Peru as part of Augustine’s mission.

Francis made him a bishop of Chicajo in Peru a year after he became a pope.

It is well known to the Cardinals around the world for its high -profile role as a prefect of the bishop’s dicastery.

As 80% of the cardinals who participated in the Conclave are appointed by Francis, it is not all surprising that someone like Prevost has been selected.

It will be considered as a figure that prefers the continuity of Francis’ reforms in the Catholic Church.

Although he is an American and will be fully aware of the divisions in the Catholic Church, his Latin American origin is also a continuity after a pope who came from Argentina.

Although, as an Archbishop in Peru, he did not escape from the sexual abuse scandals that blurred the church, his diocese fervently denied that he had participated in every attempt to conceal.

Before the Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said that during the college college gatherings in the days before the Conclave, they emphasized the need for a pope with a “prophetic spirit capable of directing a church that does not close in itself, but knows how to come out and bring light into a world marked by despair.”