The first American-born pope was elected May 8 and local Catholics are celebrating the successful papal election.
Robert Francis Prevost – now Pope Leo XIV, the 267th leader of the Catholic church – was elected May 8 after the majority of the 133 members of the College of Cardinals voted for him to succeed Pope Francis. Francis died April 21 – the day after Easter – after a stroke put him into a coma, leading to heart failure, following months of declining health, according to the Vatican.
Bishop Oscar Cantú of the Diocese of San Jose – which includes Catholic churches in Mountain View, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills – welcomed Leo in an official statement, noting the pope’s chosen name of Leo may hint to the pope’s priorities.
“By choosing the name Leo, our Holy Father nods to Pope Leo XIII, author of ‘Rerum Novarum’ (1891), the landmark encyclical that placed the dignity of workers and the demands of justice at the heart of Catholic social teaching,” Cantú wrote. “Pope Leo XIV’s first words from the loggia – a call to ‘build bridges, not divide’ – signal a pastoral desire to span the distance between divisions.”
Leo, born in Chicago, was ordained a priest in 1982 after becoming an Augustinian friar in 1977, according to the Vatican.
From 1985-1986, Leo served as a missionary in Chulucanas, Piura, Peru. Among other roles during his time in Peru, he served as a judicial vicar at the Archdiocese of Trujillo and presided over the Saint Rita Parish from 1988-1999.
He returned to the U.S. in 1999, and Francis recalled him to Rome in 2023.
“Our new Holy Father embodies the richness of the Church’s global family: He understands the rhythms of North America while carrying within him the lived faith of the global South,” Cantú wrote. “Having shepherded the Augustinian Order and most recently advised the universal Church on episcopal appointments, he brings both administrative wisdom and a missionary’s heart for evangelization in the 21st century.”
Saint Nicholas and Saint William Church in Los Altos celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving for Leo on Monday at Saint William Church, according to the church’s website.
The parish also shared a prayer for the Pope:
“O God, who in your providential design, willed that your Church be built upon blessed Peter, whom you set over the other Apostles, look with favor, we pray, on Leo our Pope and grant that he, whom you have made Peter’s successor, may be for your people a visible source and foundation, of unity in faith and of communion.
“Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.”
