Archive May 9, 2025

The white smoke has billowed, and the Catholic church has a new pope – and he’s American.

Cardinals at the Vatican elected the Chicago-born Robert Prevost on Thursday to lead the church, succeeding Pope Francis, who died last month.

Prevost took the name Leo XIV as he became the first pontiff from the United States.

“Peace be with you,” were his first words as pope.

Here is a look at the new pope and his journey from the US Midwest to the top of the church of 1.4 billion people.

What is Pope Leo’s background?

Born in Chicago in 1955 to parents of French, Italian and Spanish descent, Leo’s father was a school principal and his mother had degrees in library science and education and was deeply involved in the St Mary of the Assumption that the family attended.

Last week, the Chicago Sun-Times cited Leo’s friends and fellow church goers as saying that he was dedicated to his faith and path to priesthood from a young age.

Leo graduated with a degree in mathematics from the University of Villanova in Pennsylvania in 1977. He also studied religion at the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago.

In 1982, he received a doctorate in church law from the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas in Rome before being sent to serve in a Catholic mission in Peru.

In the subsequent decades, he rose through the ranks of the church as he bounced between Chicago and Peru.

Pope Francis made him the Bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2015 before giving him greater responsibilities within the church. That same year, Prevost also became a Peruvian citizen.

In 2023, he became prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, a key Catholic administrative body, based in Rome.

What is an Augustinian?

In his first public remarks as pope, Leo introduced himself as an Augustinian – an order within the Catholic Church that follows the teachings of St Augustine of Hippo, which emphasise love, harmony, humility and dedication to the spiritual community of the church.

The term also describes individuals who belong to religious orders, and Pope Leo is just one of 34 popes out of 266 to have done so.

Such orders are a community of Catholics, which can include priests, nuns, monks and or lay people, dedicated to a particular type of mission and spirituality.

Pope Francis was the first pope from the Jesuit religious order ever, and the first in more than a century and a half to come from any religious order.

What did the pope say in his first speech?

Leo suggested that he would follow in Francis’s footsteps. The late pope was largely seen as a transformational figure who took the church in a progressive direction and focused on promoting the rights of the poor and marginalised.

“Let us keep in our ears the weak but always brave voice of Pope Francis, who blessed Rome – the pope who blessed Rome and the world that day on the morning of Easter,” Leo said.

In his final Easter message, days before he died, Francis called for peace and disarmament.

Why Leo?

When it comes to popes, names matter. New pontiffs often choose new names as tribute to a saint or predecessor.

For example, Pope Francis took the name of St Francis of Assisi, who renounced material goods and dedicated his life to the poor.

The last Leo to lead the church, Pope Leo XIII, championed the rights of workers.

“Up until that time, the church’s hierarchy tended to be identified with the upper class, and so Leo XIII put a redirection on the church, and certainly many of the popes since that time have built on that,” Father James Bretzke, professor of theology at John Carroll University, told Al Jazeera.

What are his politics?

Church leaders are not politicians, but religion is intertwined with public affairs. Leo has given hints of his politics over the years, particularly in advocating for the rights of migrants.

In 2015, Leo shared an article by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, criticising then-candidate Donald Trump’s anti-immigration proposals. The column was titled: Why Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is so problematic.

In February, he again appeared to criticise the Trump administration’s immigration policies, taking aim at Vice President JD Vance’s argument that people should love others close to them more than strangers.

Leo shared an article proclaiming: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”

Where does he stand on female priests?

The debate over allowing women to be priests has been raging within the Catholic Church, but Leo does not seem to be in favour of the change.

“Something that needs to be said also is that ordaining women – and there’s been some women that have said this, interestingly enough – ‘clericalising women’ doesn’t necessarily solve a problem, it might make a new problem,” he told reporters in 2023.

What has he said about sex abuse scandals?

Leo’s Augustinian Order has faced criticism over transparency in dealing with sex abuse cases that have rocked the church.

In 2023, Leo called for focusing on the victims when it comes to this issue.

“There are places where good work has already been done for years, and the rules are being put into practice. At the same time, I believe that there is still much to learn,” he told Vatican News in 2023.

“I am talking about the urgency and responsibility of accompanying victims.”

How does he compare to other popes, age-wise?

At 69, Leo is younger than his past two predecessors when they became pontiffs. Francis was 76. Benedict XVI was 78. But he is older than John Paul II, who was 58 when he became pope – one of the youngest pontiffs in modern history.

What does he do in his spare time?

He likes tennis, spending time with friends and “meeting a broad range of different people”.

“I consider myself quite the amateur tennis player. Since leaving Peru, I have had few occasions to practise, so I am looking forward to getting back on the court,” he told the Augustinian Order website in 2023.

Student protest leader Mohsen Mahdawi has appeared at the Vermont state house to help launch a legal defence fund to help immigrants like himself who are facing deportation hearings.

His appearance on Thursday comes nearly a week after Mahdawi himself was released from immigration detention, after spending nearly 16 days in custody for his pro-Palestinian advocacy.

The administration of President Donald Trump has sought to deport Mahdawi and other student activists for their demonstrations, citing a Cold War-era law that allows the removal of foreign nationals deemed to have adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.

Though released on bail, Mahdawi continues to face deportation proceedings. He reflected on his time behind bars at a news conference where he and state officials announced the Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund.

“ I was unjustly kidnapped or detained, if you want to go by the legal term,” Mahdawi said with a wry smile.

“And without the support and the love that I received from the people of Vermont – Vermonters and the representatives of the people in Vermont – I may not have been here today among you.”

Mahdawi entered the national spotlight as a leader in the student protests at Columbia University, an Ivy League school in New York City that has been at the forefront of pro-Palestinian advocacy.

A legal permanent resident of the US, Mahdawi himself is Palestinian and grew up in the Far’a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. He has publicly described the oppression he said he experienced there, including the deaths of family members and friends at the hands of the Israeli military.

Since Israel launched its war in Gaza on October 7, 2023, Mahdawi has been outspoken in his opposition to the military campaign.

As an undergraduate at Columbia, he helped found student groups like Dar: The Palestinian Student Society and Columbia University Apartheid Divest. The latter has taken a lead role in protesting ties between the school and organisations involved with Israel and its military activities.

But President Trump has described such protests as “illegal” and pledged to crack down on non-citizen participants.

On March 8, Mahdawi’s colleague at Dar, Mahmoud Khalil, was the first student protester to be taken into custody for his role in the nationwide student protest movement. Others have since been detained, including Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk, who supporters say did little more than write an op-ed about the war in Gaza.

Just over a month later, on April 14, Mahdawi arrived at an appointment in Colchester, Vermont, ostensibly for his US citizenship application. Immigration officers, however, were waiting on site to arrest him, and he was led away in handcuffs.

Mahdawi was accused of no crime. The Trump administration, however, has accused him of harassing Jewish students and leading “pro-Hamas protests”, though it has not offered evidence to support those allegations.

“His rhetoric on the war in Israel proves his terrorist sympathies,” a recent document from the Department of Homeland Security said.

Mahdawi’s detention galvanised Vermont politicians on both sides of the political spectrum. Governor Phil Scott, a Republican, called on the federal government to release any evidence it had that Mahdawi was a threat to national security and denounced the surreptitious manner of his arrest.

“What cannot be justified is how this action was undertaken. Law enforcement officers in this country should not operate in the shadows or hide behind masks,” Scott wrote in a press release.

“The power of the executive branch of the federal government is immense, but it is not infinite, and it is not absolute.”

Meanwhile, Senator Peter Welch, a Democrat, visited Mahdawi behind bars at Vermont’s Northwest State Correctional Facility in an effort to raise awareness about his case.

Ultimately, on April 30, a federal district court deemed that Mahdawi was no flight risk and released him on bail, warning that the government’s actions could be interpreted as an attempt to “shut down debate”.

In his public appearance on Thursday, Mahdawi thanked his fellow Vermonters for showing him support and called on the state to act as an example to others.

“Home is where you feel safe and loved. And those who surround you, they are your people, and you are my people,” he told the crowd.

“This is a message of hope and light that our humanity is much larger than what divide us. Our humanity is much larger than unjust laws. Our humanity is much larger than being Democrat or Republican, Black or white, in a city or in rural area.”

Mahdawi also described how, when he was in detention, he saw an undocumented farm worker praying on his knees each night before going to sleep.

“ I think his prayers have been answered today by this initiative,” Mahdawi said of the legal defence fund.

The fund’s organisers said they hope to raise $1m to “build a lasting safety net” for immigrant families in Vermont. That sum, they said, would fund training and hiring legal staff to respond to what they described as an immigration “crisis”.

“Vermont is going to take action to ensure no one faces deportation, detention or family separation alone and unrepresented,” said State Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale. “This will be embedded in our civic infrastructure in a way we have not achieved before and we hope will have long-term benefits beyond this immediate crisis.”

Vermont State Treasurer Mike Pieciak added that the fund would ensure justice is not solely reserved for those who can afford it.