President Donald Trump has expressed his enthusiasm following the election of Robert Francis Prevost as the first U.S.-born pope, who has chosen the name Leo XIV.
Trump described the event as a “Great Honour” for the United States after Prevost was selected on Thursday.
“Congratulations to Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who was just named Pope,” the US president stated in a post on Truth Social.
“It is such an honour to realise that he is the first American Pope. What excitement, and what a Great Honour for our Country. I look forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV. It will be a very meaningful moment!”
Prevost, 69, was born in Chicago and studied at Villanova University before serving as a missionary in Peru. He was elected as the Bishop of Rome and accepted his role as the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics earlier on Thursday.
The United States boasts the fourth-largest Catholic population globally, following Brazil, Mexico, and the Philippines. The late Pope Francis I was notably the first pope born in the Western Hemisphere, hailing from Buenos Aires.
