Robert Prevost, first American pope, to take name Leo XIV
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VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Leo XIV, the American Robert Prevost, said "Peace be with you" in his first words as pope, offering a message of peace and dialogue "without fear."
From the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica, history's first American pope recalled he was an Augustinian priest, but that he was above all a Christian above all and a bishop, "So we can all walk together."
He spoke in Italian and then switched to Spanish, recalling his many years spent as a missionary and then archbishop of Chiclayo, Peru.
Prevost, a missionary who spent his career ministering in Peru and leads the Vatican's powerful office of bishops, was elected the first American pope in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church.
Prevost, a 69-year-old member of the Augustinian religious order, took the name Leo XIV. He appeared on the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica wearing the traditional red cape of the papacy -- a cape that Pope Francis had eschewed on his election in 2013.