Pope Leo XIV, the 69-year-old Chicago-born cardinal elected as the Catholic Church's 267th pontiff, spent many years as a missionary in Peru and is the first North American to hold the papacy.

"Peace be with all you," Pope Leo XIV said from the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica on Thursday, May 8, in his first public words.

In his first words as Pope, Leo, whose name is Robert Francis Prevost, spoke fondly of his predecessor Francis.

"We still hear in our ears the weak but always courageous voice of Pope Francis who blessed us," he said.

"United and hand in hand with God, let us advance together," he told cheering crowds.

US President Donald Trump was one of the first people to approve of Pope Leo, the leader of 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide.

     - TRUMP COMMENTS

"It is such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope," Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform. "What excitement, and what a Great Honor for our Country. I look forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV. It will be a very meaningful moment!"

Upon his election, Britain's Telegraph newspaper noted, "Insiders have long thought that the US was the world's only superpower and had more than enough geopolitical clout, without taking over the papacy as well."

"He was not one of the obvious candidates, but he knows everybody, he spent 30 years as a missionary, he has languages," a Vatican insider told the newspaper.

According to South Cook News, the Pope was born Robert Francis Prevost in Dolton, Illinois, to Louis Prevost, a Glenwood School District 167 superintendent, and Millie Prevost, a librarian.

His parents were of Spanish and Franco-Italian descent, and Prevost served as an altar boy.

Although he moved to Peru three years after his ordination in 1982, he returned regularly to the United States to serve as a pastor and a priest in his home city.

He attended Villanova University, which was founded by the Order of Saint Augustine. He graduated in 1977 with a degree in mathematics and joined the Augustinian order of Catholic priests, according to CBS Philadelphia.

Augustinians are followers of St. Augustine, a North African monk and bishop born in 354 AD, who was keenly aware of human nature and desires for community. The order says its members are "called to Restlessness," a quality seen as a "divine gift."

The Illinois native spent two decades in Peru as an Augustinian missionary and later as the bishop of Chiclayo. He's a citizen of Peru and speaks fluent Spanish and Italian.

The last pontiff to choose the name Leo was more than 100 years ago. Pope Leo XIII led the Church from 1878 to 1903.

The first pope of the name, Pope Leo the Great, led the Church from 440-461.

Pope Leo XI had one of the shortest pontificates in history, lasting less than a month, from April 1, 1605, until his death on April 27, 1605.

After graduating from Villanova, Prevost studied at the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago and was ordained as a priest in 1982.

The election of Cardinal Prevost came as a surprise, Catholic priest and blogger Ed Tomlinson said.

     - CONTINUATION OF FRANCIS PATH

"It seems likely to be a continuation of Francis's liberalization," he told The Independent newspaper.

"As 80 percent of the cardinals who took part in the conclave were appointed by Francis, it is not all that surprising that someone like Prevost was elected, even if he was only recently appointed," Paul Kirkby commented for BBC News.

"He will be seen as a figure who favored the continuity of Francis' reforms in the Catholic Church."

According to the BBC commentator, Prevost is believed to have shared Francis' views on migrants, the poor, and the environment.

As a cardinal, he challenged the views of US Vice-President JD Vance, a man who converted to Catholicism.

He reposted a post on social media platform X critical of the Trump administration's deportation of a US resident to El Salvador, and shared a critical comment piece written about a TV interview given by Vance to Fox News.

"JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others," read the post, repeating the headline from the commentary on the National Catholic Reporter website.