2025 Recipient: His Holiness Pope Leo XIV

Pope Leo XIV was born on September 14, 1955 in Chicago. In 1977 he entered the novitiate of the Order of Saint Augustine in the province of Our Lady of Good Counsel, in Saint Louis. On August, 29 1981 he made his solemn vows. He studied at the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago, receiving a diploma in theology.

At the age of 27 he was sent by the Order to Rome to study canon law at the Pontifical Saint Thomas Aquinas University (Angelicum). He received priestly ordination on June 19, 1982. He received his licentiate in 1984, and was then sent to work in the mission of Chulucanas, in Piura, Peru (1985-1986).

In 1987 he was awarded a doctorate with the thesis The role of the local prior in the Order of Saint Augustine. In the same year he was elected director of vocations and director of the missions of the Augustinian Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel. In 1988 he was sent to the mission of Trujillo as director of the joint formation project for Augustinian aspirants in the Vicariates of Chulucanas, Iquitos and Apurímac. There he served as community prior (1988-1992), director of formation (1988-1998) and teacher of the professed (1992-1998). In the archdiocese of Trujillo he was judicial vicar (1989-1998), and professor of canon, patristic and moral law in the San Carlos e San Marcelo Major Seminary.

In 1999 he was elected prior provincial of Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel. After two and a half years, the ordinary general Chapter elected him prior general, a ministry again entrusted to him in the 2007 ordinary general Chapter. In October 2013 he returned to his province to serve as teacher of the professed and provincial vicar, roles he held on November 3, 2014, when Pope Francis appointed him apostolic administrator of the diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, elevating him to the dignity of bishop and assigning him the titular diocese of Sufar. On November 7 he took canonical possession of the diocese in the presence of the apostolic nuncio James Patrick Green; he was ordained a bishop on December 12, Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in the cathedral of his diocese. He served as bishop of Chiclayo from November 26, 2015. In March 2018 he became second vice president of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference. Pope Francis appointed him a member of the Congregation for the Clergy in 2019, and member of the Congregation for Bishops in 2020.

On April 15, 2020, the Pope appointed him apostolic administrator of the diocese of Callao, and on January 30, 2023, Pope Francis appointed him as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.   On February 6, 2025, then-Cardinal Prevost was elevated the Order of Bishops within the College of Cardinals, an honor usually given to those with the highest offices in the Roman Curia.  And on May 8, 2025, he was elected Pope Leo XIV.