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AUGUSTA, Ga () – White smoke billowed from the Sistine Chapel earlier Thursday morning signifying a new pope being selected to lead the Catholic Church.
Robert Prevost, the newly names successor to Pope Francis, was born in Chicago making him the first American Pope in history.
A bishop out of Charleston, Jaques Fabre-Jeune, says he thinks the new pope took the name Leo XIV because he will follow the leadership and thinking of Leo XIII who was recognized for his social doctrines of the church.
“With the social doctrine of the church, with the gospel he was able to communicate with the rest of the world especially facing the difficulties of this time and one of them was to care for the workers.” said Bishop Fabre-Jeune.
Joseph Le Vert is a religion philosophy and horticulture teacher at Aquinas High School and tells me he and his students watched as the new pope was announced.
“Everybody was curious so, I have a big screen attached in my room and so we went live to Rome and sat there and waited and watched the bands march in and then the various representatives of the military and then out he comes!” Le Vert said.
With approximately 1.4 billion Catholics in the world, Le Vert says being the Pope is a massive role to fill.
“He has to take the wants, needs and desires of each one of those countries, cultures and so forth as well as, or most importantly, how are we to respond to the call of Christ in this day and age and that’s not easy.” said Le Vert.
Le Vert says he is happy with the choice and looks forward to seeing what the pope will do in the future.