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Saturday, July 12, 2025

Robert Prevost of America named Pope Leo XIV

by

Ryan Bachoo
64 days ago
20250509

Arch­bish­op of Port-of-Spain Ja­son Gor­don has hailed the ap­point­ment of Pope Leo XIV as not just con­ti­nu­ity but a new tone of qui­et strength and mis­sion­ary fi­deli­ty in the Catholic Church.

Yes­ter­day, the Chica­go, US-born mis­sion­ary who spent his ca­reer min­is­ter­ing in Pe­ru and took over the Vat­i­can’s pow­er­ful of­fice of bish­ops was elect­ed the first pope from the Unit­ed States in the 2,000-year his­to­ry of the Catholic Church.

In his first words as Pope Fran­cis’ suc­ces­sor, re­al name Robert Pre­vost, ut­tered from the log­gia of St Pe­ter’s Basil­i­ca, said, “Peace be with you,” and em­pha­sised a mes­sage of peace, di­a­logue and mis­sion­ary evan­ge­li­sa­tion. The 69-year-old wore the tra­di­tion­al red cape of the pa­pa­cy—a cape that Fran­cis had es­chewed on his elec­tion in 2013. He spoke to the crowd in Ital­ian and Span­ish, but not Eng­lish.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day fol­low­ing the con­clu­sion of the con­clave in Rome, Gor­don, who is pres­i­dent of the An­tilles Epis­co­pal Con­fer­ence, said, “Leo XIV is not a pope of spec­ta­cle but rather one of pas­toral pa­tience and prin­ci­pled dis­cern­ment. His agen­da—root­ed in Au­gus­tin­ian spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, epis­co­pal in­tegri­ty, and a deep lis­ten­ing Church—calls us to be­come more au­then­ti­cal­ly who we are: a Church of the peo­ple, close to the soil, steeped in song, and born from strug­gle.”

Gor­don said his ex­pe­ri­ence form­ing lo­cal cler­gy and lead­ers in the Pe­ru­vian An­des res­onates with the re­gion’s own call to “raise up a new gen­er­a­tion of Caribbean lead­ers—bish­ops, priests, re­li­gious, and laypeo­ple who are formed in our con­text, speak our lan­guages, and un­der­stand the cries and hopes of our peo­ple.”

The head of the lo­cal Ro­man Catholic Church said the Caribbean must not wait for an­swers from Rome, but in­stead, the new pon­tiff “in­vites us to build lo­cal struc­tures of syn­odal­i­ty and ho­li­ness—to be­come a Church that walks for­ward, not one that waits pas­sive­ly.”

Gor­don said the vi­sion of the new Pope is clear: the Church must be led by ser­vants who live with the peo­ple, not by princes who live above them.

He went fur­ther in say­ing Pope Leo XIV in­her­its the syn­odal vi­sion of Pope Fran­cis, yet he in­tro­duces a mis­sion­ary re­al­ism and dis­cern­ment-fo­cused lead­er­ship.

“His voice may be qui­eter, but it is no less prophet­ic. For us, this means con­tin­u­ing to in­vest in pas­toral coun­cils, dioce­san syn­ods, and re­gion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion—not as oc­ca­sion­al events but as our en­dur­ing way of be­ing Church. In a re­gion of­ten buf­fet­ed by storms—lit­er­al and metaphor­i­cal—Leo XIV’s lead­er­ship pro­vides a calm, steady­ing pres­ence. He does not promise im­me­di­ate an­swers, but of­fers us space to breathe, dis­cern, and act.”


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