Shortly after making his first appearance on the Vatican balcony on Thursday, leaders around the world sent messages of congratulations to the new pope, 69-year-old Robert Francis Prevost, who chose the papal name Leo XIV.
Prevost, a Chicago native but also a Peruvian citizen, is the first US citizen to hold the position of head of the Roman Catholic Church. There had long been a taboo against a US pope, given the country's geopolitical heft in the secular sphere.
