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American Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected the new pope and leader of the Roman Catholic Church on Thursday and has taken the name Pope Leo XIV, a senior cardinal announced to crowds in St. Peter’s Square.
A moderate who was close to Pope Francis and spent years as a missionary in Peru, Prevost becomes the Catholic Church’s 267th pontiff, taking the papal name Leo XIV.
US President Donald Trump was asked about the white smoke signaling that a new pope had been chosen on his way out of a White House event with military mothers. He offered little immediate reaction.
“I saw the smoke but I haven’t seen the pope,” Trump told reporters.
White smoke rose from the Sistine Chapel, signalling the election of a new pope. Crowds gathered in St Peter’s Square erupted in cheers as the announcement was made. The cardinals, after days of deliberation, have chosen a new leader for the Catholic Church, marking the beginning of a new chapter for its global faithful.
The bells of Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral began to ring on Thursday evening following the announcement of the election of a new pope.
To the surprise of tourists on the forecourt of the French cathedral, the bells began to ring in Paris a few minutes after white wisps emerged from the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.
The cardinals elected the new pope on their first full day of voting, making it one of the shorter conclaves in recent history.
The longest conclave since the 20th century began took 14 rounds of balloting across five days, ending with the election of Pius XI in 1922. The shortest, electing Pius XII in 1939, took three ballots over two days.
Credit: France 24
Rabiu M. Hamza
Agency News
