"May peace be among you all. Peace be with you. Peace that disarms, that comes from the Lord, who loves everyone unconditionally. The Lord loves you, the Lord loves all of you. United hand in hand with the Lord, we move forward. The world needs his light. Build bridges through dialogue. Thank you, Pope Francis. Thank you also to all my brother cardinals who elected me," said the newly elected pope to those gathered in St. Peter's Square.

Prevost was born on September 14, 1955, in Chicago. In 1977, he entered the novitiate of the Order of St. Augustine (O.S.A.) in the Province of Our Lady of Good Counsel in St. Louis. On August 29, 1981, he took his solemn vows. He studied at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, where he received a degree in theology.

At the age of 27, he was sent by the Order to Rome to study canon law at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum). He was ordained a priest on June 19, 1982. He received his licentiate in 1984 and was then sent to work in the mission of Chulucanas, in Piura, Peru (1985-1986).

In 1987, he received his doctorate with a dissertation on "The Role of the Local Prior in the Order of St. Augustine." In the same year, he was elected director of titles and director of missions of the Augustinian Province "Mother of the Good Counsel" in Olympia Fields, Illinois, United States.

In 1988, he was sent to the mission in Trujillo as director of the joint project for the formation of Augustinian postgraduates in the vicariate of Chulucanas, Iquitos, and Apurímac. There he served as community rector (1988-1992), director of formation (1988-1998), and teacher of professors (1992-1998). In the Archdiocese of Trujillo, he was judicial vicar (1989-1998) and professor of canon, patristic, and moral law at the San Carlos and San Marcelo Major Seminary.

In 1999, he was elected provincial superior of the Province of Mother of Good Counsel, Chicago. After two and a half years, the ordinary general chapter elected him general superior, a ministry entrusted to him again by the ordinary general chapter in 2007.

In October 2013, he returned to his province (Chicago) to serve as teacher of professed and provincial vicar, roles he held until November 3, 2014, when Pope Francis appointed him apostolic administrator of the diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, elevating him to the episcopate and assigning him the titular diocese of Sufar.

On November 7, he took canonical possession of the diocese in the presence of the Apostolic Nuncio James Patrick Green; he was ordained bishop on December 12, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in the cathedral of his diocese.

Since November 26, 2015, he has served as bishop of Chiclayo. In March 2018, he became second vice president of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference. In 2019, Pope Francis appointed him a member of the Congregation for the Clergy, and in 2020, a member of the Congregation for Bishops.

On April 15, 2020, the Pope appointed him apostolic administrator of the diocese of Callao.

On January 30, 2023, Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Prevo as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

BGNES recalls that the previous pope, Leo XIII, was head of the Vatican from 1878 to 1903. He is also known for threatening Prince Ferdinand I that he would excommunicate him from the Catholic Church if he baptized Prince Boris of Tarnovo into the Orthodox faith. This happened in 1896. In the end, Prince Boris was baptized into Orthodoxy, and relations with the Russian Empire normalized. However, the baptism itself was taken very hard by Ferdinand's wife, Princess Maria-Louisa, who was a devout Catholic.  І BGNES