Then Cardinal Prevost in 2024/ Midwest Augustinian Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel

By Glenn Hicks

Faith

Local Catholic leader celebrates ‘surprise’ Pope

May 9, 2025 | 4:16 PM

A local Roman Catholic church leader has been celebrating the election of the new, and first American pontiff.

Robert Prevost took the name Pope Leo XIV after the vote of cardinals at The Vatican Thursday.

Father Cerlouie Jimenez, the Chancellor of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nelson and parish priest at Our Lady of Lourdes church in West Kelowna, said Prevost was an outsider. But he suggested the College of Cardinals must have noticed something special in the American.

Father Cerlouie Jimenez/RC Dioces of Nelson

The cardinals must have seen in him someone who could contribute “to the life and governance of the church as it relates to the governance of the world. I’m very excited to see what the future holds for us,” Jimenez told Vernon Matters Thursday.

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Jimenez is a Filipino and immigrated to Canada in 2006 before being ordained in 2011. His fellow countryman Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, was among the frontrunners to become pontiff. He was considered the ‘Asian Francis’ because of his style of leadership was close to that of the former Pope.

Asked whether he was disappointed the Philippines and Asia did not get its first Pope, Jimenez said he hadn’t given that aspect any thought.

“For me as a priest, in my lifetime this is the third conclave that I’ve followed in the media and in my life of faith things like this that happen are always a movement of the Holy Spirit, “he said. “I didn’t have any feeling about this appointment that Cardinal Tagle was not chosen.”