For betting types, the conventional wisdom says not to put your money on a pope from the United States.
Yet one American some Vatican watchers say could scrape together enough votes is Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, 69, a Chicago-born polyglot who is viewed as a churchman who transcends borders. He served for two decades in Peru, where he became a bishop and a naturalized citizen, then rose to lead his international religious order. He now holds one of the most influential Vatican posts.
As ideological camps tussle over whether to continue Pope Francis’ inclusive agenda or return to a conservative doctrinal path, supporters of Cardinal Prevost pitch him as a balanced alternative among the papabili, as likely candidates for the papacy are known.
The Rev. Michele Falcone, 46, a priest in the Order of St. Augustine previously led by Cardinal Prevost, described his mentor and friend as the “dignified middle of the road.”
The cardinal resembles Francis in his commitment to the poor and migrants and to meeting people where they are. He told the Vatican’s official news website last year that “the bishop is not supposed to be a little prince sitting in his kingdom.” Rather, he said, a church leader is “called authentically to be humble, to be close to the people he serves, to walk with them, to suffer with them.”
Cardinal Prevost, appointed by Francis in 2023 to run the Vatican office that selects and manages bishops globally, has spent much of his life outside the United States. Ordained in 1982 at age 27, he received a doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. In Peru, he was a missionary, parish priest, teacher and bishop. As the Augustinians’ leader, he visited orders around the world, and speaks Spanish and Italian.
The cardinal understands that the center of the Roman Catholic Church “is not in the United States or the North Atlantic,” said Raúl E. Zegarra, assistant professor of Catholic theological studies at Harvard Divinity School.
Given Cardinal Prevost’s international experience, knowledge of the United States and work inside the Vatican hierarchy, said Marco Politi, a veteran Vatican analyst in Rome, “if he were not American, this would make him automatically a papabile, certainly.”
Cardinal Prevost, who is often described as reserved and discreet, would depart stylistically from Francis, who until his death last month drew roaring crowds and stopped to bless a baby against his doctors’ advice.
“He does not have excesses,” Father Falcone said of Cardinal Prevost. “Blessing babies, yes. Taking them in his arms, no.”
Supporters of the cardinal said they expected him to continue the consultative process started by Francis to invite lay people to meet with bishops.
“I know that Bob believes that everybody has a right and a duty to express themselves in the church,” said the Rev. Mark R. Francis, a former classmate of Cardinal Prevost who runs the American arm of the Clerics of St. Viator, a religious order.
Whereas Francis said, “Who am I to judge?” when asked about gay clerics, Cardinal Prevost has expressed less welcoming views to L.G.B.T.Q. people.
In a 2012 address to bishops, he lamented that Western news media and popular culture fostered “sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the gospel.” He cited the “homosexual lifestyle” and “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children.”
As bishop in Chiclayo, a city in northwestern Peru, he opposed a government plan to add teachings on gender in schools. “The promotion of gender ideology is confusing, because it seeks to create genders that don’t exist,” he told local news media.
While praised in Peru for supporting Venezuelan immigrants and visiting far-flung communities, the cardinal has drawn criticism over his dealings with priests accused of sexual abuse.
One woman in Chiclayo who said she and two other women were sexually abused by two priests as girls long before Cardinal Prevost was bishop accused him of mishandling an investigation and of not stopping one of the priests from celebrating Mass.
The diocese of Chiclayo said Cardinal Prevost opened an investigation that the Vatican closed. After a new bishop arrived, the investigation was reopened. Supporters of Cardinal Prevost say he is the target of a smear campaign by members of a Peruvian-based Catholic movement that Francis disbanded.
In Chicago, activists say his office did not warn a nearby Catholic school that a priest who church leaders determined had abused young boys for years was sheltered in a monastery nearby starting in 2000. As head of the Midwestern order of Augustinians at the time, Cardinal Prevost would have approved the priest’s move to the monastery.
Attempts to reach Cardinal Prevost for this article were not successful.
Friends of the cardinal say he speaks carefully.
Compared with Francis, his language is “more serene,” said the Rev. Alejandro Moral Antón, Cardinal Prevost’s successor as Augustinian leader.
Where Francis might immediately speak his mind, Cardinal Prevost “holds himself back a bit,” Father Moral Antón added.
Mitra Taj contributed reporting from Lima, Peru, and Josephine de La Bruyère from Rome.
Motoko Rich is a reporter in Tokyo, leading coverage of Japan for The Times.
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