It was long assumed that an American pope was an impossibility. Vatican insiders would dismiss the idea of a pope from the world’s preeminent superpower as completely out of the question and barely even worth a thought.

That was until around 7 p.m. Rome time on May 8, 2025, when Cardinal Dominique Mamberti emerged on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to announce to the world that Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost had been chosen by the College of Cardinals to be the 267th pope and the successor of St. Peter as the head of the Catholic Church and had taken the regnal name Leo XIV.