Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Prevost in Chicago, is the first U.S.-born pope and currently holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and Peru, raising legal questions about an American citizen leading a foreign state.

While the Vatican is a sovereign nation and the pope enjoys immunity as its head, U.S. law generally requires clear intent for someone to lose their citizenship, making it unlikely Leo would be stripped of his American status.

Margaret Susan Thompson, professor of history and political science, tells the Associated Press she doubts Leo will renounce his U.S. citizenship. But she believes the new pope was sending a message when he delivered his first speech in Italian and Spanish without using English.

“I think he wants to stress that he is the pope of the universal Catholic Church,” Thompson says, “and not an American holding that position.”

In the NPR article, “‘I am Roman,’ Pope Leo says, as he becomes the bishop of Rome,” Thompson says the statement was mostly “a symbolic gesture” rather than “a statement repudiating his United States or Peruvian citizenship.”

The statement speaks to his “particular sense of pastoral responsibility to the people of Rome,” Thompson says. Although the current pope is the first from the United States, the last three popes before him were not Italian either, notes Thompson. “It's not a governing statement. It's an important symbolic statement and pastoral statement.”