By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY —- Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, the Chicago-born prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops under Pope Francis, was the U.S. cardinal most often mentioned as a potential successor of St. Peter, but almost always with the caveat that he had an “outside” chance.
La Repubblica, the major Italian daily, described him April 25 as “cosmopolitan and shy,” but also said he was “appreciated by conservatives and progressives. He has global visibility in a conclave in which few (cardinals) know each other.”
That visibility came from the fact that as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops for the past two years, he was instrumental in helping Pope Francis choose bishops for many Latin-rite dioceses. He met hundreds of bishops during their “ad limina” visits to Rome and was called to assist the world’s Latin-rite bishops “in all matters concerning the correct and fruitful exercise of the pastoral office entrusted to them.”
(Two newly named auxiliary bishops for the Diocese of San Diego met Cardinal Prevost in September of 2024, when they attended a series of workshops for new bishops. Auxiliary Bishops Felipe Pulido and Michael Pham met him at one of the workshops, and later saw him at St. Peter’s Basilica, where they planned to take photo. Bishop Pulido recalled the Cardinal’s helped them get just the right shot.
(On May 8 at the diocese’s Pastoral Center, Bishop Pulido raised his hands in joy upon hearing the Cardinal’s name announced as the new pope, and shared the story of having met him.)
Cardinal Prevost, 69, was bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, when Pope Francis called him to the Vatican in January 2023.
In a 2023 interview with Vatican News, Cardinal Prevost spoke about the essential leadership quality of a bishop.
“Pope Francis has spoken of four types of closeness: closeness to God, to brother bishops, to priests and to all God’s people,” he said. “One must not give in to the temptation to live isolated, separated in a palace, satisfied with a certain social level or a certain level within the church.”
“And we must not hide behind an idea of authority that no longer makes sense today,” he said. “The authority we have is to serve, to accompany priests, to be pastors and teachers.”
As prefect of the dicastery, Cardinal Prevost also served as president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, where nearly 40% of the world’s Catholics reside.
A Chicago native, he also served as prior general of the Augustinians and spent more than two decades serving in Peru, first as an Augustinian missionary and later as bishop of Chiclayo.
Soon after coming to Rome to head the dicastery, he told Vatican News that bishops have a special mission of promoting the unity of the church.
“The lack of unity is a wound that the church suffers, a very painful one,” he said in May 2023. “Divisions and polemics in the church do not help anything. We bishops especially must accelerate this movement toward unity, toward communion in the church.”
Cardinal Prevost was born Sept. 14, 1955, in Chicago, Illinois. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the Augustinian-run Villanova University in Pennsylvania and joined the order in 1977, making his solemn vows in 1981. He holds a degree in theology from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.
He joined the Augustinian mission in Peru in 1985 and largely worked in the country until 1999 when he was elected head of the Augustinians’ Chicago-based province. From 2001 to 2013, he served as prior general of the worldwide order. In 2014, Pope Francis named him bishop of Chiclayo, in northern Peru, and the pope asked him also to be apostolic administrator of Callao, Peru, from April 2020 to May 2021.
Cardinal Prevost speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and can read Latin and German.
Aida Bustos contributed to this story from San Diego.
