Pope Leo XIV Makes History As First American Chosen To Lead Catholic Church
HuffPost
Plumes of white smoke streaming from a Sistine Chapel chimney Thursday signaled that a new leader of the Roman Catholic Church had been selected.
The 133 cardinals who assembled in the Vatican for the top-secret conclave have chosen a new leader of the Roman Catholic Church: Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost.
Prevost, who is the first U.S.-born pope and has chosen the name Pope Leo XIV, succeeds the late Pope Francis, who died at age 88 last month.
Plumes of white smoke streaming from a Sistine Chapel chimney Thursday signaled that a new leader of the Roman Catholic Church ― a faith with more than 1 billion followers ― had been selected by a two-thirds majority vote of the cardinals, the church’s most senior clergy under the pope.
Thousands filled the streets of Vatican City and cheered as Pope Leo XIV, a 69-year-old native of Chicago, stepped out on the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square wearing red and white.
“Peace be with you,” he said in his first speech as pope, which he gave in Italian, Spanish and Latin, but not English.
