Here’s the new pope: Leo XIV is passionate about tennis

At 6:08 p.m. from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel came the white smoke: Christendom had a new pope. A little more than an hour later his identity was announced: he was the American Robert Francis Prevost, who took the name Leo XIV,.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, on Sept. 14, 1955, to a father of French and Italian descent and a mother of Spanish descent, he is an Augustinian and has close ties to Peru where he was a missionary for many years and where he was bishop of Ciclayo. He is the first North American pontiff in history.

Since 2023 he has been a cardinal, appointed, of course, by Pope Francis, whose, at least from his first words to the crowd in St. Peter’s Square after his election, he seems to want to follow the renewal of the Church also by virtue of his chosen name, that of Leo XIII, who wrote the groundbreaking encyclical “Rerum novarum” at the end of the 19th century.

Turning, however, to what concerns sports, the new Pope is a great fan of tenns, which, as the Supertennis website writes, he has practiced frequently and he himself considers himself an amateur player with few opportunities to play it since he left Peru in 2023 to become cardinal deacon of Santa Monica in Rome.