CT Catholic leaders said they were not expecting the decision to come so soon, but that Pope Leo XIV is level-headed and well-qualified.

The United States was often deemed too powerful — militarily, diplomatically, and even culturally — for one of its own to control one of the world’s most influential seats of moral authority: the Roman Catholic Church and its flock,

Robert Prevost’s election as pope stunned many Catholics skeptical that an American would ever be elevated to that role.