ROME – History was made Thursday when cardinals gathered in Rome for the conclave elected Cardinal Robert Prevost as the first ever pope from the United States, with his papal name declared as Leo XIV.

In brief remarks after stepping out onto the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica Thursday afternoon, Pope Leo XIV said his words marked “the first greeting of Christ resurrected, the good pastor who gave life for the Lord.”

He asked that the hearts of individuals and families be filled with peace, “whoever they are, all peoples and the whole earth, peace be with you.”

The peace of Christ is “a disarmed and disarming peace, humble and perseverant,” he said, saying this peace is extended to everyone, unconditionally.”

Pope Leo XIV asked the world to listen to the “weak but courageous voice” of Pope Francis, and, like Francis blessed the world in his final Urbi et Orbi address on Easter morning, Leo XIV said he also wished to bless the world.

“God loves you, God loves you all, and evil will not prevail! We are in God’s hands,” he said, saying, “without fear, united hand in hand, with God and among ourselves, we move forward.”

He said humanity needed Christ’s light and needed him “as the bridge to be reached by God and by his love.”

“Help us too, then each other to build bridges, with dialogue, with encounter, uniting us all to be one people always in peace,” he said, and thanked Pope Francis.

Leo XIV also thanked the cardinals who elected him “to walk together with you, as a united Church seeking peace and justice, always seeking to work together as men and women faithful to Jesus Christ, without fear, to proclaim the Gospel, to be missionaries.”

He alluded to the Order of Saint Augustine to which he belongs, called “the Augustinians,” quoting the saint saying, “with you I am a Christian and for you I am a bishop.”

“In this sense we can all walk together toward that homeland that God has prepared for us,” he said, and gave a special greeting to the Church of Rome, which is technically his diocese, as he is the Bishop of Rome.

Leo XIV also offered a greeting in Spanish to the Diocese of Chiclayo, where he served as bishop for eight years before being brought to Rome by Pope Francis to lead the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops.

He closed by asking for the Virgin Mary’s intercession, saying the Madonna “always wants to walk with us, to be close to use, and to help us with her intercession and her love.”

“Let us pray for this new mission, for the whole Church, for peace in the world, and let us ask this special grace of Mary, our mother,” he said, and led faithful in praying the Hail Mary.

After his greeting, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said the name Leo XIV was a clear reference to Saint Leo the Great, or Pope Leo I, who essentially created the Church’s social doctrine, and the 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum by Pope Leo XIII outlining this doctrine, indicating that it will be a core aspect of his papacy.

On Wednesday, May 9, a Mass will be said by Pope Leo XIV in the Sistine Chapel along with the College of Cardinals that elected him, and on Sunday, May 11, he will give his first Regina Coeli address from the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Like Pope Francis before him, Leo XIV will meet with journalists accredited to the Holy See in a special audience on Monday, May 12.

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It had long been said that the idea of an American pope was unthinkable. In the beginning, it was for basically logistical reasons – steamships from the New World took so long to reach Rome that American cardinals often arrived too late to vote, and in any event they were never part of the political sausage-grinding before the conclave began.

Later, the veto on an American pope became geopolitical. You couldn’t have a “superpower pope,” or so the thinking ran, because too many people around the world would wonder if papal decisions were really being crafted in the Vatican or at CIA headquarters in Langley.

However, the election of Prevost as pope has dispelled that notion. America is no longer the world’s lone superpower, and, in any event, dynamics inside the College of Cardinals have changed. Geography is largely dead as a voting issue; cardinals no longer care what passport a candidate holds, but rather what spiritual, political and personal profile he embodies.

Leo XIV, who served as head of the Vatican’s ultra-powerful Dicastery for Bishops under Pope Francis for the past two years, was responsible for advising the pope on picking new bishops around the world, which is, inter alia, a great way to make friends in the Catholic hierarchy.

As his fellow prelates have gotten to know the former Augustinian superior, many of them liked what they saw: A moderate, balanced figure, known for solid judgment and a keen capacity to listen, and someone who doesn’t need to pound his chest to be heard.

Born in Chicago in 1955 into a family of Italian, French and Spanish origins, Leo XIV went to high school at a minor seminary run by the Order of St. Augustine, called the “Augustinians.” From there he enrolled at Villanova University in Philadelphia, eventually earning an undergraduate degree in mathematics in 1977. He joined the Augustinians the same year and began studies at the Catholic Theological Union, where he earned a Master of Divinity degree in 1982. (He was actually the first CTU alumnus to be named a cardinal.)

Next he was shipped off to Rome, where he earned a doctorate degree in canon law from the Dominican-run University of St. Thomas Aquinas, popularly known as the “Angelicum.”

In 1985, Leo XIV joined the Augustinian mission in Peru. His leadership qualities were quickly recognized, as he was named chancellor of the territorial prelature of Chulucanas from 1985 to 1986. He spent a couple of years back in Chicago as the pastor for vocations for his Augustinian province before returning to Peru, where he would spend the next decade running an Augustinian seminary in Trujillo while also teaching canon law and serving as prefect of studies in the diocesan seminary.

There’s an old rule in clerical life, which is that competence is its own curse – your workload tends to expand in direct proportion to the perception that you’re gifted at getting things done. Thus it was that in addition to his day jobs, Prevost also put in stints as a parish priest, an official at diocesan headquarters, a director of formation for Trujillo and the judicial vicar for the diocese.

Leo XIV returned to Chicago again in 1999, this time to serve as prior of his province. It was during this period that he would have a brush with the clerical sexual abuse scandals, signing off on a decision to allow an accused priest to reside in a priory close to a school. Though the move would later draw fire from critics, it came before the US bishops adopted new standards in 2002 for handling such cases, and his signature was basically a formality for a deal that had already been worked out between the archdiocese and the accused priest’s spiritual advisor and overseer of a safety plan.

In 2001, Leo XIV was elected the Prior General of the worldwide Augustinian order, with its headquarters in Rome at the Augustinian Pontifical Patristic Institute, known as the “Augustinianum,” which is located immediately adjacent to St. Peter’s Square and tends to be prime real estate for meeting visiting clergy and bishops from around the world. Prevost would serve two terms in the post, earning a reputation as a deft leader and administrator, before returning briefly to Chicago from 2013 to 2014 as a director of formation for the order.

In November 2014, Pope Francis appointed him apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Chiclayo in Peru, and a year later he became the diocesan bishop. Historically speaking, the Peruvian bishops have been badly divided between a left wing close to the liberation theology movement and a right wing close to Opus Dei. In that volatile mix, Leo XIV came to be seen as a moderating influence, reflected in the fact that he served on the conference’s permanent council and as vice-president from 2018 to 2023.

This past February, Pope Francis inducted the then-cardinal Prevost into the exclusive order of Cardinal Bishops, a clear sign of papal trust and favor – and this despite the fact, according to observers, that he and the late Francis didn’t always see eye-to-eye, but Francis nevertheless saw in the American prelate a man he felt he could rely upon.

Fundamentally, there are three qualities cardinals look for every time they have to kick the tires on a possible pope: They want a missionary, someone who can put a positive face on the faith; a statesman, someone who can stand on the global stage with the Donald Trumps, Vladimir Putins and Xi Jinpings of the world and hold his own; and a governor, someone who can take control of the Vatican and make the trains run on time, including dealing with its financial crisis.

There’s a solid argument Leo XIV ticks all three boxes.

He spent much of his career in Peru as a missionary, and parts of the rest of it in seminary and formation work, giving him an appreciation for what it takes to keep the fires of faith lit. His global experience would be an asset in the challenges of statecraft, and his naturally reserved and equanimous personality might well lend itself to the art of diplomacy. Finally, his successful runs in various leadership positions – religious superior, diocesan bishop and Vatican prefect – offer proof of his capacity to govern.

Moreover, he does not play to classic stereotypes of brash American arrogance. Instead, as both the Italian newspaper La Repubblica and the national TV network RAI recently put it, he comes off as il meno americano tra gli americani, “the least American of the Americans.”

Fundamentally, the election of Leo XIV can be seen in broad strokes as a vote for continuity with much of the substance of the Pope Francis agenda, but not necessarily the style, as he’s more pragmatic, cautious and discreet than the late pope.

He is something of a cypher when it comes to many of the contested issues in Catholic life. In terms of where he stands on matters such as the ordination of women deacons, or the blessing of persons in same-sex unions, or the Latin Mass, he’s played his cards awfully close to the vest.

In addition, he is among several U.S. cardinals against whom complaints have been lodged by the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) for allegedly mishandling abuse complaints. One concerns the accused priest in Chicago, the other two priests in Chiclayo in Peru. There is a compelling other side to that story: Multiple parties have defended his conduct in both cases, the canon lawyer who initially represented the Peruvian victims is a disgraced ex-priest with an axe to grind, and while in Chiclayo he was head of a successful diocesan commission for child protection.

The bottom line is that the election of Prevost as pope satisfies a great deal of what cardinals have traditionally looked for, and even his lack of a clear track record on some disputed issues ended up being more of an asset than a liability. A 2023 tribute from CTU at the time of his elevation to the College of Cardinals more or less summed up his appeal.

“Prevost brings to the College of Cardinals the heart of a missionary and years of ministerial experience, ranging from academic classrooms to poor barrios to the upper echelons of administration,” it said. “He embodies the Gospel call to be ready to serve wherever the Spirit leads.”

Given his election as Pope Leo XIV, history’s first pope from the United States, it’s clear that his fellow cardinal electors shared that sentiment.