In a moment that brings together two of the world’s most powerful leadership positions, President Donald Trump has offered his enthusiastic congratulations to Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who has been elected as Pope Leo XIV—the first American in history to ascend to the papacy. The President’s reaction, coming after his lighthearted social media posts suggesting he might be interested in the role himself, highlights the historic significance of an American assuming leadership of the 1.3-billion-member Catholic Church for the first time in its two-thousand-year history.