09 May 2025 - Robert Prevost becomes first American pope and takes name Leo XIV
Robert Prevost elected as first American pope and takes the name Leo XIV
Lauren Kent, Christopher Lamb, Rob Picheta, Christian Edwards and Kara Fox (CNN World, 08/05/2025)
The newly elected pontiff, now known as Pope Leo XIV, is the first pope from the United States, and the new leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. The 69-year-old from Chicago stepped into his role as the 267th pope on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica on Thursday evening, addressing thousands of cheering Catholics with the words: “Peace be with you all.”
What is behind the new Pope's chosen name, Leo?
Maria Zaccaro (BBC News, 08/05/2025)
Cardinal Robert Prevost has been elected pope and will be known as Pope Leo XIV. The 69-year-old is the first American to become as pontiff and will lead members of the Catholic Church's global community of 1.4bn people. Born in Chicago, he is seen as a reformer and worked for many years as a missionary in Peru before being made an archbishop there. He also has Peruvian nationality and is fondly remembered as a figure who worked with marginalised communities and helped build bridges in the local Church.
An American has become pope. Will he be the moral leader we desperately need?
Arwa Mahdawi (The Guardian, 08/05/2025)
America is back, baby. Not only has the Gulf of Mexico been successfully Americanized, the Vatican is now officially US territory. OK, fine, not officially, but, on Thursday, the Chicago-born Robert Francis Prevost was announced as pope. The 69-year-old, who has taken the papal name Leo XIV, is the first clergyman from the United States to lead the Roman Catholic church.
Unearthed comments from new pope alarm LGBTQ+ Catholics
Robert Mackey (The Guardian, 09/05/2025)
After years of sympathetic and inclusive comments from Pope Francis, LGBTQ+ Catholics expressed concern on Thursday about hostile remarks made more than a decade ago by Father Robert Prevost, the new Pope Leo XIV, in which he condemned what he called the “homosexual lifestyle” and “the redefinition of marriage” as “at odds with the Gospel”. In a 2012 address to the world synod of bishops, the man who now leads the church said that “Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel – for example abortion, homosexual lifestyle, euthanasia”.
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