A new Pope has been elected by 133 voting cardinals on Thursday evening. The identity of the new Pope is yet to be revealed.
White smoke was sighted rising from the chimney on the Sistine Chapel which was an indication that a new Pope had emerged.
The election of a new Pope came on the second day the 133 cardinals began voting to choose a new leader of the Catholic Church.
Also, the details on how the new Pope was voted is also not yet known but the race on who takes over the leadership position became a two horse race between two leading candidates.
Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost of the United States has been elected the 267th pope and will soon step onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica as the new leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
Prevost, 69, from Chicago, Illinois, is the first ever pope from the United States. He will be known as Leo XIV.
A leader with global experience, he spent much of his career as a missionary in South America and most recently led a powerful Vatican office for bishop appointments. He is expected to build on Pope Francis’ reforms.
He worked for a decade in Trujillo, Peru, and was later appointed bishop of Chiclayo, another Peruvian city, where he served from 2014 to 2023.
In an interview with Vatican News shortly after he became the leader of the Dicastery for Bishops, Prevost said: “I still consider myself a missionary. My vocation, like that of every Christian, is to be a missionary, to proclaim the Gospel wherever one is.”
