As the prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, Bishop Prevost will play a key role in the selection process for diocesan bishops and in the investigation of allegations against bishops.
Bishop Robert Francis Prevost was named prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Bishops on Jan. 30, 2023. (photo: Frayjhonattan / CC BY-SA 4.0)
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Monday named an American as the next prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Bishops to succeed Cardinal Marc Ouellet.
Bishop Robert Francis Prevost will lead the Vatican office responsible for evaluating new members of the Catholic Church’s hierarchy, the Vatican announced Jan. 30.
Bishop Prevost, 67, has served as a bishop of the Diocese of Chiclayo in Peru since 2015. He is a member of the Order of St. Augustine and led the Augustinian order as prior general from Rome for more than a decade after serving as a missionary priest for the order in Peru in the 1990s.
Born in Chicago in 1955, Prevost entered the Augustinian order as a novice at the age of 21. He studied philosophy at Villanova University and theology at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago before being ordained to the priesthood in Rome in 1982.
Bishop Prevost earned a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) in Rome in 1985.
He helped to establish in 1988 the order’s formation house in Trujillo, Peru, where he went on to serve as prior, formation director, judicial vicar, and a director of seminary studies. He returned to the U.S. in 1999 after being elected prior of the order’s Chicago province.
After becoming a bishop in Peru, Bishop Prevost was appointed by the Pope as a member of the Dicastery for Bishops and the Dicastery for Clergy.
As the prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, Bishop Prevost will play a key role in the selection process for diocesan bishops and in the investigation of allegations against bishops.
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