A pope from the United States. That was the biggest surprise on May 8 when the new pontiff, Chicago native Robert Francis Prevost, was announced as Pope Leo XIV.

It was quite the surprise, but it is important not to make too much of Leo’s nationality. For one thing, Prevost hadn’t lived in the United States for decades. He was the head of his Augustinian order in Rome from 2001 until 2013, when Pope Francis sent him to lead a diocese in Peru. Prevost had served as a missionary in Peru early in his priesthood. In 2023, after a decade in the leadership of the Peruvian diocese of Chicalayo, Prevost returned to Rome to head the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops.

Leo, in short, spent the majority of his adult life outside of the United States.