The surprising election of the first American pope felt fraught and disorienting to Roman Catholics around the world, who had considered such an outcome unlikely and perhaps unwelcome — until Pope Leo XIV stepped onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica and chose to speak a few sentences in Spanish.
In an instant, the new pope, formerly Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, signaled that his identity would defy easy categorization. He chose in that pivotal moment on Thursday evening not to say anything in English or mention the United States. He seemed intent on conveying the message that he was not a typical American.
It worked. Pope Leo, who was born in Chicago, has Creole heritage, lived in Peru for decades and speaks at least three languages, established himself as a citizen of the world. Catholics around the globe raced to claim pieces of his multicultural and multilingual background as their own.
”He considers himself American, but he also considers himself Peruvian,” said Julia Caillet, a 33-year-old osteopath, who was in line outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris for a special service for young Catholics celebrating the new pope on Friday evening. “He is a priest of the world.”
At a time when President Trump has isolated the United States from its diplomatic allies and trade partners and upended much of the world order, some Catholics worried that an American pontiff might somehow bring the Roman Catholic Church closer to the tumultuous American government.
Instead, Pope Leo appears to have reassured them, at least for now, that he would preserve the church as a global moral voice calling for peace and justice, especially for migrants, the poor and victims of war, in the mold of Pope Francis.
He is described as more reserved and diplomatic than Francis. Yet Pope Leo’s warm words for Peru, where he holds dual citizenship after having lived and worked there for more than 20 years, reminded Catholics of Francis, who was from Argentina.
The Vatican News called Leo, 69, not the first pope from the United States, but the second pope “from the Americas.” And South Americans were quick to declare him theirs.
“He is more Peruvian than American,” Cardinal Odilo Scherer of Brazil said in a news conference on Friday.
He and several other Brazilian cardinals batted away question after question about the new pope’s nationality; one Brazilian reporter said an American pope had seemed taboo, because of the power of the United States.
It came as a relief to Araceli Torres Hallal, 64, a Catholic entrepreneur in Mexico City, to learn in the last few days that the new pope is not “purely American.”
“We feel threatened by them,” she said of the United States. “So it would’ve been a total disaster and a cold slap in the face if the pope had been full-on American.”
Mrs. Torres saw Pope Leo’s experience as a bishop and a missionary in Peru for the Order of St. Augustine, and his 12 years leading the order worldwide, as crucial in shaping him as a pastor in touch with the needs of poor and vulnerable people. She said she expects him to serve as a counterweight to some of Mr. Trump’s anti-migrant policies.
Even calling Pope Leo “American” has bothered those Latin Americans who resent the use of the word to describe someone from the United States, because they see it as a form of imperialism. They think “American” should apply to anyone from the entire continent — that is, from North, Central or South America.
The 133 cardinals who elected Pope Leo in a two-day conclave were surely aware of the possible criticism they could face for choosing a pope from a superpower where about 80 percent of the people are not even Catholic — especially to succeed Francis, who focused on what he called the church’s “peripheries,” far from Rome, and mostly in the global south.
Many of the cardinals in the conclave were named by Francis. They came from more countries than ever before and shared his views, and yet elected an American anyway, in what they described as a deeply spiritual and fulfilling process.
Several cardinals said after conclave that Pope Leo’s nationality hardly mattered.
“In the end, I don’t think the country of origin is the determining factor,” Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines, who was considered a top contender going into the conclave, said in a news conference on Friday. “Ultimately, it’s about the person who can truly serve the church.”
In the Philippines, many of the faithful had rooted for Cardinal Tagle, one of several potential contenders to become the first Asian pope. But some said they were already won over by Pope Leo.
Sister Mary John Mananzan, a Benedictine nun, superior and directress of St. Scholastica’s Academy in the city of San Fernando in the Philippines, was encouraged by news that on social media, an account under Cardinal Prevost’s name criticized Vice President JD Vance for trying to claim that Catholic teaching could be used to defend mass deportations of immigrants from the United States.
“Although he has a gentle quality,” she said of the new pope, “he has the integrity to be able to express his opinion when somebody is violating human rights.”
In Africa, where the church is growing faster than anywhere else in the world, Adelaide Ndilu said she gasped in surprise that the new pope was American. Then she danced with joy.
Ms. Ndilu, 59, a producer and presenter with Radio Waumini, a national Catholic radio station in Kenya, said that she trusted Pope Leo because of his proficiency in several languages, years in Peru and Creole heritage.
After he was elected, genealogists turned up records showing that his grandparents may have come from Haiti, the Dominican Republic and France.
She hoped that background would help him navigate the growing cultural and spiritual diversity among the church’s members.
“We want a pope who can reach out to the peripheries and get the church out of its comfort zone,” she said. “We want a pope for all the people.”
Laurent Stalla-Bourdillon, a priest and theologian in the Diocese of Paris, said it seemed normal to him that the first American pope would have a very mixed heritage.
“For us, that’s what America is: mixed, many origins, many generations of migration,” he said. “It’s a melting pot.”
In the end, the most fundamental part of Pope Leo’s identity may not be either his American or his Peruvian nationality, argued some members of the clergy and religious experts.
It may be that, from a very young age, the new pope identified as an Augustinian, a member of a religious order known for its emphasis on missionary service and community.
“He entered the Augustinians when he was 17!” said Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco, the archbishop of Algiers and a member of a different order.
“I’m a Dominican. It’s another citizenship,” he said on Friday. “You belong to another reality. When you are in an order, the difference of the countries comes in second. In his mind, I’m sure it’s that.”
Reporting was contributed by Aie Balagtas See in Manila; Aurelien Breeden and Catherine Porter in Paris; Lynsey Chutel in London; Tatiana Firsova and Clay Risen in Berlin; Jason Horowitz in Rome; Ana Ionova and Jack Nicas in Rio de Janeiro; Vjosa Isai in Toronto; Abdi Latif Dahir in Nairobi, Kenya; Ruth Maclean in Dakar, Senegal; Choe Sang-Hun in Seoul; Paulina Villegas in Mexico City, and Sui-Lee Wee in Davao City, the Philippines.
