Pope Leo XIV (Born Robert Francis Provost September 14 1955), is the head of Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican city state, since 2025. he is the first Pope to have been born in the United State and North America, the first to hold Peruvian Citizenship, the first from the Order of Saint Augustine and the second from the Americas (after his immediate predecessor Francis).
Provost was born in Chicago Illinois, and raised in the nearby suburb of Dolton. He became a Friar of the order of St. Augustine in 1977, and was ordained as a priest in 1982. His service include, extensive missionary work in Peru in the 1980s to 1990s, where he worked as a parish pastor, Diocesan Official, seminary teacher and administrator. Elected Prior General of the Order of St. Augustine, He was based in Rome from 2001 to 2013, and extensively travelled to the orders provinces around the world. He then return to Peru as Bishop of Chiclayo from 2015 to 2023. in 2023, Pope Francis appointed him prefect of the Dicastery of Bishops in Rome, and President of the pontifical Commission for Latin America.
Made a Cardinal by Pope Francis, Provost emphasized synodality, missionary dialogue, and engagement with social and technological challenges. He also engaged with issues such as climate change, global migration, church governance, and human right, and expressed alignment with the reforms of the second Vatican Council.
Prevost’s election in the 2025 papal conclave was unexpected by observers; he was a dark horse candidate, with Vatican insiders believing that a pope would never emerge from the United States. He took his papal name in honor of Pope Leo XIII, who developed modern Catholic social teaching amid the Second Industrial Revolution.