Ronald Hicks, a 58-year-old bishop from Illinois, will be formally installed on February 6. He has shown solidarity with migrants at a time when the US administration is ordering mass deportations and portraying migrants and refugees as criminals.

VATICAN CITY -- The temporary chimney atop the Sistine Chapel released a plume of white smoke on Thursday evening local time, signaling that the 133 cardinals working inside had reached a two-thirds majority to elect a new pope for the Catholic Church.

Pope Leo XIV's childhood home just outside of Chicago has been declared a historic landmark. The board of trustees of the village of Dolton, Illinois, approved a motion for the designation during a regular meeting Dec. 1 that began with a recitation of the Lord's Prayer.

Several months after purchasing the residence, Dolton officials have designated the childhood home of Pope Leo XIV as an Official Historical Landmark.