Pope Leo XIV has cast his vote through a mail-in ballot for the upcoming Nov. 3 U.S. midterm elections, becoming the first sitting pope known to have voted in a U.S. election in more than 2,000 years of Christian history.
“In keeping with this long-standing practice of civic participation, he has submitted his mail-in ballot in Chicago,” the Holy See said Friday in a statement.
Born Robert Francis Prevost on September 14, 1955, in Chicago, Leo holds U.S. citizenship by birth and Peruvian citizenship after he spent years as a missionary bishop in Peru where he gained citizenship in August 2015, holding dual U.S.-Peruvian citizenship for roughly a decade.
The pontiff had requested a mail-in ballot on October 3, just days before he underwent surgery to remove a lower lobe of his right lung after doctors detected a nodule that was confirmed during the operation to be lung adenocarcinoma.
Following the Holy Father’s surgery at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital on October 13, doctors have since confirmed that his lung cancer was localized and that no further treatment was necessary.
His recovery has since been progressing well, with medical examinations showing a favorable clinical condition. Leo returned gradually to public duties the next day after being discharged from hospital on Oct. 17.
Speaking from the window of the Apostolic Palace during the Angelus the next day, Leo said that the delicate phase of his recovery had passed before resuming his weekly general audience on October 21.
By October 26, he had resumed his activities and was medically cleared for his planned November trip to Latin America.
“The Holy Father expresses his belief in the right and the duty of citizens to participate in democratic processes,” the Holy See Press Office said, explaining the pontiff’s position on civic participation.
The church also confirmed that Leo used to vote during his years of residence in Peru whenever he was eligible to do so.
Elected on May 8 last year as Pope Leo XIV, when he became the sovereign of Vatican City State. Leo has a history of voting in elections before he took the Vatican position, including in previous U.S. elections.
During the 2008 and 2010 Democratic primary elections, Leo cast his vote and also participated in the Republican primaries in 2012, 2014 and 2016. He even voted by absentee ballot while living in the Vatican in 2024.
But his latest vote is different because it is the first time a sitting pope is known to have voted in a U.S. midterm election for decades.
“I think Leo is likely to be the first pope in history to cast a vote while holding the office, and he may well be the first to vote from the Vatican itself,” Catholic historian John L. Allen Jr., editor of Crux, reacted to the move, telling CNN.
Additional historians backed the claim that Leo might be the first sitting Pope to vote in Christianity history in over 2000 years.
Speaking Massimo Faggioli said:
“He’s probably the first pontiff to have voted in a U.S. presidential election. There’s no record of any other pope ever doing it.”
In history, no verified record exists of an earlier pope casting a ballot in a national election of a secular democracy. The Holy See itself has no political elections, and recent non-Italian predecessors who retained other citizenships have no documented participation in elections while pope.
Illinois does not register voters by party; voters choose a party’s ballot when participating in a primary.
