Following the death of Pope Francis, a new Pope has been elected, and he’s someone who has some college ties to the United States of America. Known to many as the “Latin Yankee,” Robert Prevost—now Pope Leo XIV— was named the next Pope. This comes after he worked 20 years in Peru’s poorest enclave, and even became a naturalized citizen there.
Cardinal Prevost, a native of Chicago who is now the first American-born Pope. He has spent most of his career outside of the United States, ministering to the dispossessed and marginalized. His commitment there echoes the legacy of Pope Francis, an Argentine who became the Catholic Church’s first leader from South America.
Newly Named Pope Robert Prevost Graduated From Villanova
Before becoming the first American-born Pope in centuries, Cardinal Robert Prevost earned his degree from Villanova. Here’s how his college days shaped his journey.
Francis turned to Prevost on repeated occasions. In 2022, he had him preside over a revolutionary reform: adding three women to the voting bloc that decides which bishop nominations go forward to the pope. Yet his successor is considered more middle of the road, pragmatic as well as cautious.
Prevost’s childhood roots were deep on Chicago’s South Side. He grew up worshipping at St. Mary of the Assumption Church on E. 137th Street. Local media reported that his father, of French and Italian ancestry, was an educator who served in the church as a catechist, and that his mother, of Spanish ancestry, was a librarian.
Members of the clergy would come to his family’s home from across Illinois for community and his mother’s delicious cooking, according to the Pillar, a Catholic media project. As a youth, he served as an altar boy and went to the parish school and then a seminary high school.
He attended Villanova University, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1977. He was ordained five years later and completed a doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. Then came two decades of service in Peru, much of it as a missionary and parish priest.
Prevost, who is fluent in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French, was twice elected top leader of the centuries-old Order of St. Augustine. Its website describes the international order as “living together in harmony, being of one mind and one heart on the way to God,” calling nothing your own and living communally.
In a 2023 interview with Vatican News, Prevost spoke about the essential leadership quality of a bishop.
“Pope Francis has spoken of four types of closeness: closeness to God, to brother bishops, to priests and to all God’s people,” he said. “One must not give in to the temptation to live isolated, separated in a palace, satisfied with a certain social level or a certain level within the church.
“And we must not hide behind an idea of authority that no longer makes sense today,” he continued. “The authority we have is to serve, to accompany priests, to be pastors and teachers.”
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