An avid amateur tennis player from Chicago with Creole roots who speaks five languages and is described as a consensus builder will aim to bring unity to the Catholic faith and it’s 1.4 billion adherents.
Robert Francis Prevost was elected Pope Leo XIV following the largest-ever conclave—with 133 cardinals participating—that lasted just two days.
The 69-year-old, who was revealed as the church’s 267th leader on May 8 from the loggia at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, greeted his flock cheering from the square below, and watching on TV around the world, with the words: “Peace be with you.”
He expressed a desire to bridge divides in his first address, delivered in Italian and Spanish. “We want to be a synodal church, walking and always seeking peace, charity, closeness, especially to those who are suffering,” he said.
While there was much excitement about Leo being the first American pope in the church’s 2,000-year history, the pontiff faces a number of immediate challenges.
Leo ascends to the papacy at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions, when Russia is continuing its war in Ukraine and Israel has renewed its offensive in Gaza after a temporary ceasefire. “His greeting to those gathered in St Peter’s Square and those watching globally, ‘peace be with you,’ has set the tone for his papacy,” Maria Power, a Catholic and senior research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Las Casas Institute for Social Justice, told Newsweek. “Over the past 50 years, the pope’s role as a global statesman has been emphasized, and he is seen as a neutral figure who has the moral authority required to navigate global political tensions.”
His first tasks, she said, will be “to turn his attention to Israel/Palestine and Ukraine, sending Vatican diplomats to engage in shuttle diplomacy while keeping the world’s attention focused on places where the dignity of the human person is being violated daily.”
The church in recent years has been divided between conservatives and progressives. Conservative Catholics in the U.S. were particularly critical of his predecessor Pope Francis, but Pope Leo is viewed as a moderate who could strengthen unity—”an inspired choice” to deal with the divisions, Power said. “He is a centrist who has vast missionary experience and will therefore understand the global church. He will have to walk a fine line between the factions of the church, but there are elements of his ministry and priesthood that will appeal to both sides.”
Doctrinal peace is only part of the challenge—Leo faces a moral reckoning as well. The pope will have to continue dealing with the sex abuse scandals that have dogged the church for decades. He faced scrutiny over allegations that he mishandled sexual abuse complaints filed in Chicago in 2000 and Peru in 2022. Newsweek contacted the Vatican via email for comment.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests called on Leo to institute a “truly universal zero tolerance law for sexual abuse and cover-up” by clergy and demanded an investigation into his handling of prior misconduct allegations.
“Tackling the pain, effects and causes that result from clerical sexual abuse” will be one of the pope’s biggest challenges, Thomas O’Loughlin, a professor of historical theology at the U.K.’s University of Nottingham, told Newsweek.
Meanwhile, Pope Leo must contend with the crisis of disengagement. While the number of Catholics is growing in some parts of the world, church attendance is declining in others—especially Europe. More than 321,000 German Catholics left the church in 2024. He addressed the issue as he celebrated his first Mass in the Sistine Chapel the day after he became pope.
“There are many settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent. Settings where other securities are preferred, like technology, money, success, power or pleasure,” he said. “These are contexts where it is not easy to preach the Gospel and bear witness to its truth, where believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied. Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed.”
Pope Leo also inherits the Vatican’s troubled finances, which Francis tried to fix even in his final months. The Vatican faces an €83 million ($93.4 million) budget shortfall, according to Reuters, and a pension fund with up to €2 billion in liabilities, the Wall Street Journal reported.
This financial strain is a sharp contrast to his path to the papacy. Born on the working-class streets of Dolton, Chicago, where he was raised in a Catholic family as one of three siblings, in 1985 he began missionary work in northern Peru, splitting his time between there and the U.S. for over 30 years. An Augustinian priest with a doctorate in canon law who can speak English, Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese, he embedded himself in local life, gaining a reputation as both a skilled administrator and a warm, grounded pastor.
Tennis became his reprieve. “A very amateur player,” he once joked, “but it’s always been a joy.”
Pope Francis recognized Prevost’s leadership and brought him to Rome in 2023 to lead the Dicastery for Bishops, a key role shaping the Church’s global hierarchy. His cross-cultural background and pastoral experience are expected to shape his leadership of a complex and diverse Church.
