Catholics around the World Embrace an American Pope

The Washington Post

15:10 JST, May 10, 2025

The world is a noisy and chaotic place, and right now America is very loud. It dominates: economies, headlines, conversations. And now the Catholic Church, for the first time, has an American pope.

There are 1.4 billion Catholics. Will they, especially in the developing world, in the global south – where the church is growing so quickly – embrace Leo XIV? Early signs point to yes.

This was a moment when many faithful thought they might get an African or Asian pope. Catholics in the Philippines, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Myanmar hoped a native son would be elevated. That did not happen, and some expressed a tinge of sadness: They were so close.

But as the white smoke dissipated, many were quick to pivot. They liked what they were hearing about this pope.

“This is the man God chose,” the Rev. Aris Sison, a diocesan spokesman in Quezon City, the Philippines, told The Washington Post. “I’m very, very happy.”

Leo is definitely American, born and raised in Chicago and allegedly a White Sox fan. But Robert Prevost is a different sort of American – or at least that’s how many people around the world have begun to see him. A man who served the poor for decades in Peru, who is fluent in Spanish and Italian, who was close to Pope Francis, who focuses on people struggling at the edges.

On social media, some have called him “woke.” Conservatives worry he’ll follow Francis’s more liberal tendencies. Progressives hope he will.

The Rev. Lucas Ong’esa, from Kisii, Kenya, said the selection “is not a surprise. It indicates that the Holy Spirit is at work.” As an American, he said, Leo “is in a position to challenge” President Donald Trump.

“He will even tell President Trump to stop his provocative speeches and plans of conquering different countries and tell him, ‘No – you must stop and respect the world.’”

Ethiopia

Sister Hiwot Zewde, a nun with the Daughters of Charity in Ethiopia, gathered with volunteers in Addis Ababa to watch the announcement of the new pope.

“When someone said, ‘He’s coming, he’s coming!’ we were so excited everyone whipped out their mobile phones to take a picture,” she said while laughing.

“We weren’t praying for a particular one,” she said. “When they said it was the first pope from the U.S., we all screamed.”

Zewde mourned the death of Francis, “who was very close to the brokenhearted, the marginalized, those in need. He listened to them and gave them hope.” But she saw a lot of Francis in Leo. She wants a pope who serves rich and poor alike.

“It could be a reminder for President Trump – unity for his own country and even for other countries is important.” She said a long-standing program that provides medical and psychological care for 1,200 female war crimes survivors was canceled after recent U.S. foreign funding cuts.

“The U.S. is not a country only for the Americans,” Zewde said. “It is a country for the world. I hope and pray the Americans will collaborate with Pope Leo XIV because the effect will be for the world.”

Philippines

In the Philippines, home to Asia’s largest Catholic population, hope had soared for the candidacy of Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle, a former archbishop of Manila. Filipino priests were seeking a renewal of faith in the country, where Catholicism, though still dominant, has been losing influence.

“It is true that Cardinal Tagle is a very charismatic person, very popular,” Sison said. But Pope Francis, who was Argentine, and Pope John Paul II, who was Polish, were “beloved” by Filipino Catholics.

Sison is also heartened by Prevost’s choice of papal name, a likely nod to Pope Leo XIII, who grappled with the harms of communism and capitalism, and by his ministry in Peru, where socioeconomic conditions mirror those of the Philippines.

“This is a pope who will be able to relate to our situation,” he said.

South Africa

The Rev. Russell Pollitt, a Jesuit priest at Holy Trinity Catholic Church near Johannesburg, hoped Leo would uphold “the dignity of all people.”

“This man seems to have been someone who was on the side of migrants and refugees flocking to Peru from Venezuela,” he said. “I think that’s important, that we don’t lose that. Migrants and refugees are becoming a sort of scapegoat for politicians,” he said, a development he called “immoral and disgusting.”

“The American church leadership seems to be becoming more and conservative – there seems to be this real uncomfortable mix of politics – Republican – and the leadership of the Catholic Church,” Pollitt said. “It’s a real contradiction that on one side of the Atlantic you have this megalomania – contempt for the poor and downcast in any form.”

Leo seemed a humble man, he said. “You don’t see many videos of him. He wasn’t in the limelight, calling attention to himself.”

Peru

In the coastal city of Chiclayo, Peru, where Prevost served for decades, hundreds of worshipers packed Santa María Cathedral on Thursday for evening Mass. Crowds outside celebrated a man many knew. A banner proclaimed: “The Pope has a Chiclayan heart.”

Iris Ajip, 42, was working at her restaurant when she heard the shouts: “Turn on the TV!” She remembered Robert Prevost well – she saw him for years at Sunday Mass. “We are all just so excited,” she said. Prevost arrived in Peru in 1985, eventually took citizenship and served as bishop of Chiclayo from 2015 to 2023. Until his selection as pope, he headed the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

The last time Juanita Llontop Reyes, 74, saw Prevost, she said, she asked for his blessing. “He is humble, charitable, he’s kind, he’s good.”

The Rev. Juan Mechan Sánchez, the cathedral’s parish vicar, spoke of Prevost’s care for the people of Chiclayo, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic and disastrous flooding from El Niño. “He was a bishop who was always close to human pain,” Sánchez said.

Brazil

Churchgoers filled Our Lady of Peace church in Rio de Janeiro to pray for the new pope. For many, it was an oration of relief.

Brazil is home to the world’s largest Catholic population. Many here felt great affection for Francis, the first Latin American pope, who communicated a worldview informed by the region’s inequalities and economic injustices. The faithful here spoke of Prevost as one of them – a fellow Latin American – and hoped his pontificate would resemble Francis’s.

Pictures of him astride a horse, in a Peruvian flood, hoisting a beer – images that resonate here – have circulated widely on Brazilian social media.

“He lived the reality of the people. He understands hunger and poverty,” said Beatriz Araújo, 58. “And it was in a country that is poor, like ours. He knows the real reality and will have his head open.”

Elizabeth Clemende, 61, agreed.

“He was in Peru,” she said. “He sees the people.”

Mexico

Many Mexicans, too, see Leo as more Latin American than American.

“He is the real deal for us,” said Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez, a sociologist who studies religion. “I don’t see him as a gringo. I see him as a U.S. citizen, as a dude who can understand where the hell he is placed, what’s his role. … He’s not the ‘Ugly American’ of the 1950s.”

Sometimes, Soriano-Núñez said, Prevost even wrote his name the traditional Latin American way, with his mother’s surname after his father’s last name: Robert Prevost Martínez.

“He is well-known in Peru and in church circles in Latin America. I’m sure that’s why he became pope. I’m sure he got at least 20 of the 23 Latin American votes [at the conclave] – if not the whole set.”

Mexican media dubbed him “least American cardinal.” Some called him “American-Peruvian.”

“The Vatican chose the perfect anti-Trump,” tweeted Enrique Krauze, a prominent historian. “White smoke, in a world of darkness.”

“Even though he’s American, I feel like he’s more tied to us than to the United States,” student Montserrat Díaz, 22, said at the Basilica of Guadalupe, Mexico’s most celebrated shrine. In his first public greeting as pope, she noted, he inserted some Spanish remarks into his Italian speech – but not English. “I thought it was beautiful.”

Ghana

During the conclave, parishioners at Christ the King Catholic Church in Accra prayed the rosary daily, the Rev. Ebenezer Akesseh said. Many were hoping Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson would be selected.

Turkson “would have made a good pope,” said Edward Akapire, 42, but he didn’t expect it.

“We have to be realistic and acknowledge that the church is not devoid of racism,” he said. “We have a bit to go.”

But he said the choice showed a willingness to move away from tradition. Leo could help the U.S. move from “looking inward,” he said, “to getting America back to appreciating its global responsibilities.”

“But that all depends on the relationship the pope strikes with Trump,” he said.

Akapire hoped Leo would continued the welcoming tone set by Francis. His relative youth, he said, means he should be able to travel widely – including to Africa. First up, he said with a laugh, should be a trip to Ghana.