Election of Pope Leo XIV

In an extraordinary moment for the Roman Catholic Church and the world, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, a native of Chicago and an Augustinian friar and missionary, has been selected as Pope Leo XIV, the 267th Pope and the first U.S. Pope. As a bishop who lived for many years in Peru, Pope Leo XIV also is a naturalized citizen of Peru. Both North and South America rightly claim this Pope as their own.

For many of us in Illinois — and, in particular, for those of us with family and personal connections to the great Catholic communities of Chicago — the election of Pope Leo XIV is a reminder that the Church and our Christian faith are both local and global. I encourage all members of the Quincy University community to pray for the health of the new Pope, for his faithful stewardship of the Church, and for the good that can be done in the world through the moral authority of the papacy.

We at Quincy University look forward to this next moment in the life of the Church. May we work to achieve the peace and unity that were so central to the Pope’s message today. May we humbly remember, as the Pope said, “we are all in the hands of God.”

Pax et bonum,
Brian McGee