Cardinal Michael Czerny said that when Cardinal Robert F. Prevost was elected pope and chose the name Leo XIV, “I rejoiced, I really rejoiced.”

A New Orleans genealogist has found that the first U.S.-born pope has Black and Creole roots — and the discovery illuminates the nation’s rich multiracial history, the experience of Black Catholics and the importance of the church’s sacramental records.

As details of Pope Leo’s past life come to light one thing, many are struck by his Chicago roots and his Chicago-ness.

One thing seemed clear from the moment Pope Leo stepped out onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica: He was not another Pope Francis — or another Pope Benedict XVI or St. John Paul II. He intended to do things his own way.

While no one from then-Father Prevost’s time at the Angelicum is still teaching there, Father White is proud that Leo XIV is the second contemporary pope to be an Angelicum graduate in recent decades.

Among his first messages, Pope Leo XIV expressed his intention to strengthen the Catholic Church’s ties with the Jewish community.

Augustinian Father Robert Hagan said that fellow order member Pope Leo XIV has “always been a brother to us” — one who encouraged him from his early days to his own leadership role in the order.

“Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” St. Augustine’s famous words addressed to God introduce his account of how a headstrong, self-indulgent young man became one of the most important Christian thinkers of all time and a saint — and the father of the Augustinian order, to which Pope Leo XIV belongs.

The first American pope has spoken in the past with affection about the fifth-century convert, bishop and intellectual powerhouse considered the father of his religious order, the Order of St. Augustine.

Days before he was elected, Pope Leo XIV (then Cardinal Robert F. Prevost) received a ringing endorsement from a Catholic school teacher in New Jersey — one the pope-to-be apparently read just hours before entering the conclave at which he would be chosen.