By Business Insider Reporter
For the first time in history, an American has been elected pope. On Thursday, the College of Cardinals gathered in the Sistine Chapel for the secretive papal conclave and selected Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Prevost to lead the Catholic Church.
He accepted his new role as the Bishop of Rome, the spiritual leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, and chose the name Pope Leo XIV.
The election marks a milestone for both the Catholic Church and the United States, a country whose global influence has often raised questions about whether it could ever produce a pontiff.
Of the 266 popes in history, none had come from the U.S., and fewer than 20 have held the office since the U.S. declared independence in 1776.
On the eve of the conclave, Bishop Robert Barron of Minnesota reflected on this historical absence, citing his late mentor, Cardinal Francis George, who believed that a U.S. pope would not emerge until the nation’s global dominance declined.
“If America is kind of running the world politically, culturally, economically, they don’t want America running the world religiously,” Barron explained.
Bishop Barron, recently appointed by President Trump to the White House Commission on Religious Liberty, was among the many prelates present in Rome this week.
Though not among the cardinal electors, Barron spent time in discussion with many of them as they deliberated over who was best suited to shepherd the Church into its next chapter.
With the election of Pope Leo XIV, a new era begins — one that breaks with centuries of tradition and places an American at the heart of global Catholicism.
