Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Inside the VaticanJuly 08, 2025
From left: Pope Leo XIV greets visitors in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on June 25, 2025. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez); an undated photo of him as a young man. (OSV News photo/Augustinian Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel); then-Father Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, during a Catholic News Service video interview in Rome on Oct. 29, 2012. (CNS video screenshot)

No one expected a pope from the U.S. In this first-ever “Inside the Vatican” Deep Dive series, those who know him best reveal who Pope Leo XIV—“the American pope”—really is.

Across three episodes, we trace his vocation from Chicago’s South Side through his formative years as an Augustinian friar in the Midwest; training as a canon lawyer in Rome; early ministry in Peru as canon lawyer, priest and formator of future friars and diocesan priests; leadership of the Augustinian order worldwide; a return to Peru as bishop; and, finally, to the Vatican—first as cardinal and now as pope.

In this first episode, host Colleen Dulle takes listeners from the electrifying moment of his announcement as Pope Leo XIV to a discovery uncovered by a genealogist in New Orleans: just two generations ago, census records listed his family as “Black” or “mulatto,” revealing deep Louisiana roots and a history of enslavement.

But we consider far more than his family tree. We hear about his childhood, seminary years shaped by Vatican II and insights from his brothers and friends in the Augustinian Order that reveal the deep-listening, community-focused approach that defined the ministry of the man then known as Robert Prevost.

In this episode, you’ll hear from:

  • Jari C. Honora, genealogist and family historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection
  • John Merkelis, O.S.A., Augustinian priest and lifelong friend of Pope Leo
  • Dianne Bergant, C.S.A., Professor Emerita of Old Testament Studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, who taught Pope Leo
  • Arthur Purcaro, O.S.A., Augustinian priest and missionary who worked alongside him in Trujillo, Peru

And don’t forget to come back for the next two episodes in this series.

The latest from america

A Reflection for the Thursday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time, by Ashley McKinless
Ashley McKinlessJuly 08, 2025
The Vatican Synod office has released a set of guidelines for local churches and bishops to implement the proposals of the recent Synod on Synodality.
When Miami native Tom Llamas was named “NBC Nightly News” anchor following the retirement of Lester Holt, one of the first phone calls he placed was to the rector/president of his Jesuit high school alma mater.
Father Alejandro Moral Antón, prior general of the Augustinian order, spoke on Pope Leo XIV's vacation at Castel Gandolfo.
OSV NewsJuly 08, 2025