AFP USA

Pope Leo XIV will celebrate mass Friday, the day after becoming the first US head of the Catholic Church, with the world watching for signs of what kind of pope he will be.Chicago-born Robert Francis Prevost became on Thursday the 267th pope, spiritual leader to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, after a secret conclave by his fellow cardinals in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.At 11:00 am (0900 GMT) Friday, the 69-year-old sometimes referred to in Rome as the “Latin Yankee” for his time as a missionary in Peru, will return to the chapel to celebrate a private mass with cardinals that will be broadcast by the Vatican, delivering his much-anticipated first homily as pope.Tens of thousands of well-wishers cheered Leo as he appeared on the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica on Thursday evening — with many having no idea who the modest man before them was.The American, who spent two decades in Peru and was only made a cardinal in 2023, had been on many Vatican watchers’ lists of potential popes, although he is far from being a globally recognised figure.Over the coming days, from Friday’s mass to Sunday’s midday Regina Coeli prayer and a meeting with journalists at the Vatican on Monday, the actions and words of Leo will be closely scrutinised.Across the globe in Peru, well-wishers including the bishop of El Callao outside Lima, Luis Alberto Barrera, saluted the Augustinian’s engagement in the Andean country.”He showed his closeness and simplicity with the people,” Barrera told AFP.”He was a very simple person who adapted to everything, like any good missionary.”In Chicago, locals celebrated his love of baseball, deep-dish pizza and his working-class South Side neighbourhood in the United States’ third-largest city.The Chicago Tribune called him “the pride and joy of every priest and nun” at his local parish, where he went to school and served as an altar boy.- Build bridges -In his first speech to the crowds packed into St Peter’s Square on Thursday evening, Leo echoed his predecessor Pope Francis with a call for peace.”Help us, and each other, to build bridges through dialogue, through encounter, to come together as one people, always in peace,” he said.”We must seek together how to be a missionary Church, a Church that builds bridges, which holds dialogues, which is always open.”World leaders raced to welcome his election and promised to work with the Church on global issues at a time of great geopolitical uncertainty.Leo faces a momentous task. As well as asserting his moral voice on a conflict-torn world stage, he must try to unite a divided Church and tackle burning issues such as the continued fallout from the sexual abuse scandal.As Cardinal Prevost, the new pope had defended the poor and underprivileged and had reposted articles online critical of US President Donald Trump’s anti-migrant policies.But Trump nevertheless welcomed his election, saying on Thursday it was a “great honour” to have a pope from the United States.It was not known how many ballots it took to elect Leo XIV, but the conclave followed recent history, wrapping up in less than two days.- Consensus candidate -The crowds erupted with cheers when white smoke billowed into the sky from the Sistine Chapel chimney, the traditional sign that a new pope has been elected. “I’m not an overly religious person but, being here with all these people just blew me away,” said 39-year-old Joseph Brian from Belfast in Northern Ireland.With the choice of Prevost, experts said, the cardinals had opted for continuity with the late Francis, a progressive from Argentina who shook up the Church in his 12-year papacy.”He is a moderate consensus candidate who fits into a soft continuity, a gentle continuity with Pope Francis, who will not alienate conservatives,” said Francois Mabille, a researcher at the Paris-based think tank IRIS and author of a book on Vatican strategy.”At least, he has not alienated them.”Vatican watchers agreed that Prevost’s more soft-spoken style should help him as he navigates turbulent waters on the international stage, acting as a counterpoint to more divisive voices.”It is a posthumous success for Pope Francis, with undoubtedly some different accents and embodiment of the pontifical role,” said Mabille.

US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled a “historic” trade agreement Thursday, Trump’s first deal with any country since he unleashed a blitz of sweeping global tariffs.The deal will see Washington lower tariffs on British luxury cars and lifts them entirely on steel and aluminum, although a 10 percent baseline levy on British goods stays in place.As Trump announced the deal while making a phone call to Starmer in the Oval Office, he said Britain would in return will open up markets to US beef and other farm products.But the deal remained thin on details, despite Trump hailing it as a template for deals with other countries such as China after his “Liberation Day” tariffs in April.”I’m thrilled to announce that we have reached a breakthrough trade deal with the United Kingdom,” Trump said. “The deal includes billions of dollars of increased market access for American exports.”The deal came through at the last minute, with Starmer saying he learnt that Trump had given it his approval when he called him on Wednesday night as he watched a football match.”This is a really fantastic, historic day,” Starmer said during the call with Trump.He noted that it coincided with the 80th anniversary of “Victory Day” for allied forces — including Britain and the United States — over Nazi Germany in World War II.- ‘James Bond’ -Britain had made a major push to avoid Trump’s tariffs, which the Republican insists are necessary to stop the United States from being “ripped off” by other countries.Starmer launched a charm offensive as early as February when he came to the White House armed with an invitation from King Charles III for a historic second state visit for Trump.The reward came on Thursday, with a trade deal slashes export tariffs for British cars from 27.5 percent to 10 percent, Britain said. The move will apply to 100,000 vehicles from luxury makers like Rolls Royce and Jaguar, billionaire Trump added.”That is a huge and important reduction,” PM Starmer said during a visit to a Jaguar Land Rover factory in the central Midlands area of England.US automakers however said the deal “hurts” companies that have partnered with Canada and Mexico.The British government insisted that the deal to allow in more US agricultural products would not dilute British food standards, amid concerns over chlorinated US chicken and hormones in US beef.It also entirely lifts recently-imposed 25 percent tariffs on British steel and aluminium. World stock markets mostly rose on news of the deal but uncertainty remained over key issues.Trump said that “James Bond has nothing to worry about” from his threatened 100 percent tariffs on foreign movies, but did not spell out how Britain could get a carve out.The deal also failed to mention digital services, with the White House keen to tackle a recent digital services tax imposed by Britain on US tech giants.- ‘Maxed-out’ -Both sides said there would be further negotiations on a fuller deal, but Trump denied overselling the agreement.”This is a maxed-out deal — not like you said it really incorrectly,” he added, answering a reporter’s question on whether he was overstating the breadth of the deal.The deal is a fresh win for Labour leader Starmer after Britain this week struck a free-trade agreement with India, its biggest such deal since it voted to leave the European Union in 2016.Torturous negotiations between London and Washington in the years since the Brexit vote failed to produce a deal until now.But Trump has also been in need of a win after weeks of insisting that countries were lining up to make deals with the United States.Trump told reporters at the White House he was “working on three of them” and that the British deal could act as a template.US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said most countries would still be hit with higher tariffs than the 10 percent baseline “Liberation Day” tariffs, and only the “best” would escape.Top US and Chinese officials are due to meet in Switzerland over the weekend to kickstart trade officials, the first official meeting since Trump’s tariffs plunged the world’s two largest economies into a trade war.

The founder and former CEO of bankrupt cryptocurrency trading platform Celsius, Alexander Mashinsky, was sentenced Thursday to 12 years in prison on fraud charges.Mashinsky, 50, pleaded guilty last December to securities fraud in a deal that reduced the level of charges he faced.The sentence comes down nearly three years after the startup’s collapse as a cryptocurrency platform, which offered customers the ability to invest in digital currencies, including its own coin, CEL.According to the indictment, Celsius executives took more than $4 billion in customers’ assets to finance the platform’s operations, make unsecured loans and invest in high-risk items.Mashinsky was also accused of manipulating the price of CEL by using customers’ funds to purchase the currency, artificially inflating its price.At its peak in late 2021, Celsius had more than one million clients and held more than $25 billion in assets.But the company hit hard times in the spring of 2022 as the value of cryptocurrencies plummeted.Facing deep customer withdrawals, Celsius on June 12, 2022 froze over $4.7 billion in customer accounts before filing for bankruptcy protection a month later.A progress report published in March found that 93 percent of the frozen assets had been recovered and returned to former Celsius customers.The 2022 cryptocurrency collapse affected a number of other startups in the field, including FTX, the second-largest crypto exchange that filed for bankruptcy in November 2022.

For decades, long-suffering Chicago White Sox fans grumbled that it would take divine intervention for their baseball team to succeed. Now they have the holiest of supporters in their corner: Pope Leo XIV.Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who on Thursday was elected pope to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, has been a longtime fan of one of his two hometown baseball franchises.Initially it appeared that both Chicago teams were claiming Leo as their own, fueling a cross-town beef — until the pope’s brother weighed in.Speaking to local television station WGN, John Prevost made it abundantly clear where Leo’s sports allegiances lie.”Yeah he was never, ever a Cubs fan, so I don’t know where that came from,” John Prevost told the station, referring to the other Chicago team in Major League Baseball. “He was always a Sox fan.”Prevost also revealed some members of the family have been divided in their support.”Our mother was a Cubs fan… and our dad was a (St. Louis) Cardinals fan,” he said. “And all the aunts, our mom’s family, was from north side, so that’s why they were fans” of the Cubs, which are headquartered in that part of town.His brother? “He rooted for the White Sox.”The Sox swiftly took to X to capitalize on how the worldwide news touched their team, posting a photograph of a sign at their home stadium Rate Field, the former Comiskey Park, that reads: “HEY CHICAGO, HE’S A SOX FAN!”The team added in its post: “Well, would you look at that… Congratulations to Chicago’s own Pope Leo XIV.”Wrigley Field, longtime home of the Cubs, had posted a nearly identical message on its sign: “HEY CHICAGO, HE’S A CUBS FAN!”In one respect Leo is already following in the footsteps of papal predecessor Francis, the first Argentine pope, who was known for being a lifelong fan of his beloved local San Lorenzo football club in Buenos Aires.The White Sox won the World Series in 2005, ending an 88-year drought between their latest two Major League Baseball championship titles.

A Polish former model testifying through tears Thursday at the trial of Harvey Weinstein said the disgraced movie mogul sexually assaulted her when she was a minor at age 16.Kaja Sokola, 39, alleged in a New York criminal court circumstances surrounding an alleged assault in 2002 when she met with Weinstein in a Manhattan apartment.”I was scared, I never had been in an intimate situation before that,” Sokola said in graphic testimony, adding that as he molested her she noticed Weinstein “staring at me in the reflection” of a bathroom mirror.”I’ll never forget this,” she said.Sokola is being heard this week in criminal court for the first time, as one of three accusers in a 2020 New York case alleging Weinstein committed multiple sexual assaults. Weinstein does not face charges in the alleged 2002 incident with Sokola because it falls outside the statute of limitations.On Wednesday, Sokola testified that Weinstein also sexually assaulted her in spring 2006, in a Manhattan hotel when she was 19, claims the Miramax co-founder denies.The two other accusers — onetime production assistant Miriam Haley and then-aspiring actress Jessica Mann — testified at Weinstein’s original trial.Their accounts helped galvanize the #MeToo movement nearly a decade ago, but the case is being re-prosecuted as Weinstein faces a new trial in New York.His 2020 convictions on charges relating to Haley and Mann were overturned last year by the New York Court of Appeals, which ruled that the way witnesses were handled in the original trial was unlawful.Sokola said she was a 16-year-old aspiring actress when she met Weinstein at a dinner with other models. The film producer who is nearly 40 years her senior called her a few days later to propose a lunch meeting, she testified, but instead they arrived at an apartment and he told her to take off her clothes.”He forced me to the bathroom. I told him I didn’t want to do it, and he said I had to work on my stubbornness,” she told the court, testifying that Weinstein touched her and forced her to touch him until he ejaculated.Sokola recalled feeling “stupid, ashamed,” as the 73-year-old Weinstein, seated in a wheelchair, looked at the jury or rested his hands on his forehead.When she told Weinstein she wanted to leave, “he got upset” and said “I had to listen to him if I wanted to pursue my career in Hollywood,” added Sokola, who is now a psychotherapist.Sokola acknowledged that a year later she began losing weight and suffered from conditions including anorexia and bulimia.Asked by prosecutor Shannon Lucey why she never reported what happened, she said “I thought it was my fault.””I was a happy teenager before that,” she said. “I had boundaries, but this happened so rapidly without my permission.”Sokola said she saw Weinstein again at a lunch in 2006, and that he had lured her to a Manhattan hotel room under the pretext of showing her a script.She said Weinstein pushed her onto a bed and forced her to have sex.”I told him to stop,” he said in testimony set to continue Friday, “but he didn’t listen.”Weinstein, the producer of box-office hits “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love,” has never acknowledged wrongdoing.He is serving a 16-year prison sentence after being convicted in California of raping and assaulting a European actress more than a decade ago.

US Catholics flocked to churches across the country in a celebratory mood to mark the “excitement” of the first-ever American pontiff following Thursday’s election of Pope Leo, who worshippers hoped would bring back lapsed believers.Outside Manhattan’s imposing St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rosaria Vigorito, 66, said she could “feel the excitement just in the few minutes I’ve been walking around.”The Miami artist said she hoped Pope Leo, a 69-year-old from Chicago who spent much of his career in Peru, would be a reformist.”I have one issue with the Catholic Church that I’m hoping they’ll correct, and that is allowing women to become priests,” she said, a crucifix around her neck.”I think Mary Magdalene was an important apostle. There was a press release issued by the Vatican years ago — they called her the apostle to the apostles.”Crowds of faithful and journalists had gathered outside the church that first opened its doors in 1879, with hundreds of worshippers filing in to pray and light candles.Oscar Salvador, 45, a laborer from Mexico, said he hoped Leo would be able to stem the tide of people leaving the church.”I believe it is a blessing for the people of America,” he said. “Hopefully, he will leave a good legacy… so that more people stay in Catholicism, since lately we have seen many people leave for other religious sects.”- ‘A bit surprised’ -In Houston, the sprawling Texas city where more than a quarter of residents reportedly identify as Catholic, Azul Montemayor said she was “a bit surprised.””I was not expecting an American to be elected and I’m just hoping that he carries on (pope) Francis’s legacy of just being more inclusive” and “doesn’t get swayed by more conservative ideology” popular now under US  President Donald Trump, said the 29-year-old examinations officer.Analyst Ciro Benitez, 41, told AFP that Leo’s multiculturalism was a sign “that we can expand to different kinds of cultures, (and) I guess, to the world.” In Washington, Peruvian diplomat Julio Aiana, 32, said “we are happy that now we have a pope who is half Peruvian” — referring to the nationality Robert Francis Prevost acquired while ministering there years before becoming pope.”I believe that the times are changing,” Aiana said.Reverend Monsignor W. Ronald Jameson, director of St. Matthews cathedral, told AFP Leo “was a friend of pope Francis — and he has the ability to really listen and reflect on what was said, and to implement those various ideas he heard.”In Los Angeles, Francis Fah attended a special mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to offer special prayers for Leo, as the first American pope.”I think that maybe this is a sign that hopefully he can do something to get some peace and stability in the country,” she told AFP.Back in New York, worshipper Tim Anderson, 61, said Leo’s strength would lie in his languages — reportedly speaking English, Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese — in addition to reading Latin and German.”I’m still working on English so I think it’s gonna be interesting in this day and age where there’s so much craziness,” he laughed.”Maybe he can bring back a little bit of what I remember as a child growing up a Roman Catholic — and how full the churches were back then.”- ‘Welcoming to everybody’? -Vigorito said she wanted Leo “to bring us together.”She acknowledged the new pontiff would have a daunting task to “do as much as (he) can as a religious leader, because we deal with a lot of secular politics and issues.””I would love the new pope to help, especially with conflicts in any way possible, like in Ukraine,” she said.Salvador also voiced hope Leo “can reconcile the countries that are at war and help them to reach peace so that we do not continue on this violent path.”Having an American pope “will help bring more people to the Catholic Church, and even those that have walked away — maybe they’ll get reengaged,” added Vigorito.Annie Elm from North Carolina paid tribute to Francis, calling him “wonderful” and praising his legacy.”He loved everybody. He lived very modestly,” she said. “He was very humble.” Elm also said she hoped Leo would be “very kind and caring — welcoming to everybody.”gw-burs/sla

The US Justice Department has opened a criminal probe of New York state Attorney General Letitia James, one of President Donald Trump’s main adversaries, for alleged mortgage fraud, newspapers reported Thursday.The investigation comes after the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), a Trump appointee, alleged that James “appeared to have falsified records” related to properties in Virginia and New York to obtain better loan terms.James has denied wrongdoing and said in a statement last month when reports emerged that she may be a target that she “will not be intimidated by bullies.”The Albany Times-Union and Guardian newspapers, which first reported the probe, said the criminal investigation into James’s real estate dealings involved the Justice Department and the FBI.The Washington Post said it is believed to be the first criminal investigation by the administration involving a law enforcement official who took action against Trump.James, a Democrat, drew the wrath of Trump after leading a civil fraud case against him that saw the Republican ordered to pay a huge penalty last year.Trump was found liable of fraud by conspiring to alter his net worth to get better loan and insurance terms. Trump and his older sons were ordered to pay $454 million.Trump and his allies regularly attacked James during the trial in New York, and he has put revenge against his foes high on the agenda since returning to the White House in January.FBI and Justice Department staff involved in criminal cases against Trump have been fired, among other acts of retribution.According to the Washington Post, a grand jury has issued subpoenas related to a mortgage application in which James stated that a Virginia home would be her primary residence.James’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said in a letter to US Attorney General Pam Bondi that his client was actually helping her niece purchase the property and the documents clearly stated she would not be living in the home, the Post said.William Pulte, the head of the FHFA, had “cherry-picked” one paperwork mistake in the loan application package in seeking his criminal referral, Lowell added.

Doctors often start exams with the so-called “eyeball test” — a snap judgment about whether the patient appears older or younger than their age, which can influence key medical decisions. That intuitive assessment may soon get an AI upgrade.FaceAge, a deep learning algorithm described Thursday in The  Lancet Digital Health, converts a simple headshot into a number that more accurately reflects a person’s biological age rather than the birthday on their chart.Trained on tens of thousands of photographs, it pegged cancer patients on average as biologically five years older than healthy peers. The study’s authors say it could help doctors decide who can safely tolerate punishing treatments, and who might fare better with a gentler approach.”We hypothesize that FaceAge could be used as a biomarker in cancer care to quantify a patient’s biological age and help a doctor make these tough decisions,” said co-senior author Raymond Mak, an oncologist at Mass Brigham Health, a Harvard-affiliated health system in Boston.Consider two hypothetical patients: a spry 75‑year‑old whose biological age clocks in at 65, and a frail 60‑year‑old whose biology reads 70. Aggressive radiation might be appropriate for the former but risky for the latter. The same logic could help guide decisions about heart surgery, hip replacements or end-of-life care.  – Sharper lens on frailty -Growing evidence shows humans age at different rates, shaped by genes, stress, exercise, and habits like smoking or drinking. While pricey genetic tests can reveal how DNA wears over time, FaceAge promises insight using only a selfie.The model was trained on 58,851 portraits of presumed-healthy adults over 60, culled from public datasets. It was then tested on 6,196 cancer patients treated in the United States and the Netherlands, using photos snapped just before radiotherapy. Patients with malignancies looked on average 4.79 years older biologically than their chronological age.Among cancer patients, a higher FaceAge score strongly predicted worse survival — even after accounting for actual age, sex, and tumor type — and the hazard rose steeply for anyone whose biological reading tipped past 85.Intriguingly, FaceAge appears to weigh the signs of aging differently than humans do. For example, being gray-haired or balding matters less than subtle changes in facial muscle tone. FaceAge boosted doctors’ accuracy, too. Eight physicians were asked to examine headshots of terminal cancer patients and guess who would die within six months. Their success rate barely beat chance; with FaceAge data in hand, predictions improved sharply.The model even affirmed a favorite internet meme, estimating actor Paul Rudd’s biological age as 43 in a photo taken when he was 50.- Bias and ethics guardrails -AI tools have faced scrutiny for under‑serving non-white people. Mak said preliminary checks revealed no significant racial bias in FaceAge’s predictions, but the group is training a second‑generation model on 20,000 patients.They’re also probing how factors like makeup, cosmetic surgery or room lighting variations could fool the system.Ethics debates loom large. An AI that can read biological age from a selfie could prove a boon for clinicians, but also tempting for life insurers or employers seeking to gauge risk. “It is for sure something that needs attention, to assure that these technologies are used only in the benefit for the patient,” said Hugo Aerts, the study’s co-lead who directs MGB’s AI in medicine program. Another dilemma: What happens when the mirror talks back? Learning that your body is biologically older than you thought may spur healthy changes — or sow anxiety.The researchers are planning to open a public-facing FaceAge portal where people can upload their own pictures to enroll in a research study to further validate the algorithm. Commercial versions aimed at clinicians may follow, but only after more validation.

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to allow it to revoke the legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.Solicitor General John Sauer asked for the lifting of a lower court order barring the administration from ending humanitarian protections for migrants from the four nations.In March, the administration moved to revoke the legal status of some 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who came to the United States under a “parole” program launched by former president Joe Biden.The parole program allowed entry into the United States for two years for up to 30,000 migrants per month from the four countries, which have grim human rights records.District Judge Indira Talwani, an appointee of Democratic president Barack Obama, blocked the administration last month from revoking the legal status of the migrants.In her order, Talwani said the administration had acted on a flawed interpretation of immigration law, with expedited removal applicable to non-citizens entering the United States illegally, but not those authorized to be in the country, such as through the parole program.Under Trump’s revocation, the immigrants would have lost their legal protection effective April 24, just 30 days after the Department of Homeland Security published its order in the Federal Register.The Trump administration asked the conservative-majority Supreme Court last week to back its bid to end temporary protected status (TPS) shielding more than 350,000 Venezuelans from deportation.Biden extended TPS for another 18 months just days before Trump returned to the White House in January.The United States grants TPS to foreign citizens who cannot safely return home because of war, natural disasters or other “extraordinary” conditions.A federal judge in California put a temporary stay in March on plans by Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem to end deportation protections for the Venezuelan nationals.Trump campaigned for the White House on a pledge to deport millions of undocumented migrants.Among other measures, he invoked an obscure wartime law to fly hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a prison in El Salvador.

Robert Francis Prevost, the first pope from the United States, has a history of missionary work in Peru but his powerful role within the Roman Curia has also given him a keen grasp of the inner workings of the Church.The new Leo XIV, who was born in Chicago, was entrusted by his predecessor Francis to head the Dicastery for Bishops, a key Vatican department that advises the pontiff on appointments.That role allowed the mild-mannered Prevost, 69, to become known by cardinals within the Curia, the Holy See’s government, despite his decades spent outside of Rome and his native United States. “Leo XIV is a pastoral pope in his approach, attentive to the peripheries. He’s a natural candidate for the pragmatic reformist bloc,” said Francois Mabille, a researcher at the Paris-based think tank IRIS and author of a book on Vatican strategy.He called Prevost a “moderate consensus candidate” with experience in the Global South who lacks a “clear-cut ideological profile,” making him more acceptable to the Church’s conservative bloc. Francis’s confidence in Prevost to head one of the Vatican’s most important departments spoke to the younger man’s commitment to the “peripheries” — overlooked areas on the fringes of the Catholic world — together with his reputation as a bridge-builder and moderate. After Prevost was named the dicastery’s prefect, Francis elevated the Archbishop-Bishop Emeritus of Chiclayo, Peru — who has dual US and Peruvian citizenship — to cardinal.On Thursday, the current bishop of that diocese on Peru’s Pacific coast, Edinson Farfan, called the new pope “a brother who has passed through these lands”. “From the beginning when he finished his studies he came to Peru, to the mission in the north of Peru in Chulucanas, with a clear option for the poor. And from the moment he arrived in Peru he fell in love with Peru,” Farfan told a press conference. “He has given his whole life to the mission in Peru,” he said, adding that Leo XIV was “sensitive to the issue of poverty”.Prevost also becomes the first Augustinian pope. His work over two consecutive terms as the head of the mendicant order keenly focused on missionary work and charity also took him around the globe. Vatican watchers had given Prevost the highest chances among the group of US cardinals of being pope, given his pastoral bent, global view and ability to navigate the central bureaucracy.Italian newspaper La Repubblica called him “the least American of the Americans” for his soft-spoken touch. His strong grounding in canon law has also been seen as reassuring to more conservative cardinals seeking a greater focus on theology.- ‘Can’t turn back’ –  Following Francis’s death, Prevost said there was “still so much to do” in the work of the Church. “We can’t stop, we can’t turn back. We have to see how the Holy Spirit wants the Church to be today and tomorrow, because today’s world, in which the Church lives, is not the same as the world of ten or 20 years ago,” he told Vatican News last month. “The message is always the same: proclaim Jesus Christ, proclaim the Gospel, but the way to reach today’s people, young people, the poor, politicians, is different,” he said. Born on September 14, 1955 in Chicago to parents of French, Italian and Spanish descent, Prevost attended a minor seminary of the Order of St Augustine in St Louis as a novice. He graduated from Philadelphia’s Villanova University, an Augustinian institution, with a degree in mathematics. After receiving a masters degree in divinity from Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union in 1982, and a doctorate in canon law in Rome, the polyglot joined the Augustinians in Peru in 1985 for the first of his two decade-long missions in that country.Returning to Chicago in 1999, he was made provincial prior of the Augustinians in the US Midwest and later the prior general of the order throughout the world.He returned to Peru in 2014 when Francis appointed him apostolic administrator of the Chiclayo diocese.Prevost also serves as president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.