The new pope, Leo XIV, also has Peruvian nationality.

Lima.- The American Robert Prevost, elected this Thursday as the new pope, with the name of Leo XIV, also has Peruvian nationality, which he obtained in 2015 after spending a large part of his religious life in the Andean country, reported the national identity registry (Reniec).

"We have a record with those names, naturalized since 2015, indeed in Chiclayo, currently has a valid DNI," said the spokesperson for the organization, Rubí Rivas, to the RPP radio station.

Prevost, 69 years old and born in the American city of Chicago, arrived in Peru on an Augustinian mission in 1985, just three years after being ordained a priest and returned in 1988 to direct the Augustinian seminary in the northern city of Trujillo for ten years.

In 2014, he returned to the country as apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Chiclayo and then became bishop of that town in northern Peru.

Precisely, according to RPP, after being appointed to these latest positions, he became a Peruvian national to comply with one of the concordats between the Holy See and Peru.

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He was also part of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference (CEP) between 2018 and 2023, of which he was second vice president, and was apostolic administrator of Callao, the port province annexed to Lima, between 2020 and 2021.

In addition, he was president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and from 2023 was taken to Rome by Pope Francis, to whom he was very close, to direct the Dicastery for Bishops. EFE