Cardinal Robert Prevost from the US has now been elected the new pope and leader of the Roman Catholic Church on Thursday and has taken the name Pope Leo XIV, a senior cardinal announced to crowds in St Peter’s Square.

The pontiff, who will be named Pope Leo XIV, is the 267th Pope, becoming the religious leader of Catholics across the globe and history’s first American pope. 

Robert Prevost, the choice of the world’s Catholic cardinals to serve as leader of the 1.4-billion-member Church, is the first pope from the United States and a relative unknown on the global stage.

Aged 69 and originally from Chicago, Prevost has spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru and became a cardinal only in 2023.