According to Vatican News, the new pope was born on 14 September 1955 in Chicago as the son of Louis Marius Prevost, of French-Italian descent, and Mildred Martínez, of Spanish descent. He attended the Augustinian Fathers' Minor Seminary and then Villanova University in Pennsylvania, where he obtained a BA in mathematics in 1977 and took up philosophy studies. On 1 September of the same year, he began his novitiate in the Augustinian Order in Saint Louis and made his first profession of vows on 2 September 1978. He made his perpetual vows, however, on 29 August 1981.

He continued his theological studies at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, culminating in a diploma. At the age of 27, he was sent by his superiors to Rome to study canon law at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum). During this time, he was ordained a priest at the Augustinian College of Santa Monica on 19 June 1982.

Prevost obtained his bachelor of canonry in 1984, and the following year, while working on his doctorate, he was sent to the Augustinian mission in Chulucanas, Piura, Peru (from 1985 to 1986). In 1987, he defended his doctoral thesis on: ‘The Role of the Local Prior in the Order of Saint Augustine’ and was appointed Director of Vocations and Missions of the Province of Mother of Good Counsel in Olympia Fields, Illinois (USA).

The following year, he went on mission to Trujillo, also in Peru, as director of a joint formation programme for Augustinian candidates from the vicariates of Chulucanas, Iquitos and Apurímac. Over a period of 11 years, he served as Prior of the community (from 1988 to 1992), in charge of formation (from 1988 to 1998) and as educator in the seminary (from 1992 to 1998). He also served in the Archdiocese of Trujillo as judicial vicar (from 1989-1998) and was a lecturer in canon law, patristics and moral theology at the San Carlos y San Marcelo Major Seminary. At the same time, he was entrusted with the pastoral care of the community of Nuestra Señora Madre de la Iglesia, which was later transformed into the parish of St Rita (he ministered there from 1988 to 1999) and which is located in a poor suburb of Trujillo. Fr Prevost also served as administrator of the parish of Nuestra Señora de Monserrat (from 1992 to 1999).

In 1999, he was elected provincial of the Augustinian province of ‘Mother of Good Counsel’ in Chicago, and two and a half years later, at the General Chapter of the Order of St Augustine, the confreres entrusted him with the mission of Prior General, which he continued also in his second term, after the 2007 Chapter.

In October 2013, he returned to his home province in Chicago and became responsible for formation at St Augustine's monastery, as well as a councillor and provincial vicar. He held these functions until Pope Francis appointed him apostolic administrator of the Peruvian diocese of Chiclayo on 3 November 2014, naming him bishop and assigning him the titular see of Sufar. On 7 November, he took charge of the diocese. Just over a month later, on 12 December on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Apostolic Nuncio to Peru, Archbishop James Patrick Green, ordained him bishop.

His episcopal call is ‘In Illo uno unum’, the words of St Augustine from the Explanation of Psalm 127, emphasising that ‘although we Christians are many, in Christ we are one’.

In September 2015, Pope Francis appointed him bishop of Chiclayo and in March 2018 he was elected second vice-president of the Bishops' Conference of Peru.

In July 2019. Francis appointed him a member of the Congregation for the Clergy, and a year later also a member of the Congregation for Bishops. Meanwhile, he became apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Callao in Peru.

In January 2023, the Pope appointed him Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, elevating him to the dignity of Archbishop. At a consistory on 30 September of the same year, he created him a cardinal, with the titular church of St Monica belonging to the Roman diaconate under the name of the same saint.

In October 2023. Francis appointed him a member of the Dicastery for Evangelisation (Section for First Evangelisation and New Particular Churches), the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, the Dicastery for the Clergy, the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the Dicastery for Culture and Education, the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, and the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican City State.

On 6 February this year, the Pope included him among the cardinal bishops, granting him the diocese of Albano.