By Adenike Lawal<\/p>\n
History was made in Vatican City as Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, a Chicago-born prelate with deep global roots, was elected the 267th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.<\/p>\n
He becomes the first American to wear the papal crown, taking the name Pope Leo the Fourteenth.<\/p>\n
The dramatic moment came at 6:07 p.m. local time on May 8, when white smoke rose from the Sistine Chapel, signaling a successful election by the 133 cardinal electors.<\/p>\n
Minutes later, Cardinal Dominique Mamberti declared the traditional Habemus Papam to the cheering crowd in St. Peter\u2019s Square.<\/p>\n
Aged 69, Pope Leo XIV succeeds Pope Francis, who died in April after a groundbreaking 12-year reign.<\/p>\n
Known for his missionary work in Peru and leadership at the Vatican\u2019s Dicastery for Bishops, the new pope brings a wealth of international experience to a Church facing deep internal and global challenges.<\/p>\n
In his first words, he greeted the world with, \u201cPeace be with you,\u201d setting a tone of unity and calm as he begins what is expected to be a pivotal papacy for the future of Catholicism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Adenike Lawal History was made in Vatican City as Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, a Chicago-born prelate with deep global roots, was elected the 267th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. He becomes the first American to wear the papal crown, taking the name Pope Leo the Fourteenth. The dramatic moment came at 6:07 p.m. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":65493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-65492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65492"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65494,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65492\/revisions\/65494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}