After a two-day conclave in the Vatican City, Pope Leo XIV was elected to the Papacy, and Mass Effect fans have already found a bizarre connection to Cerberus. Lead by the Illusive Man, Cerberus is a humanity-first paramilitary outfit that acts as Commander Shepard's employer in Mass Effect 2 after reconstructing their body and bringing them back from death, but also serves as a major antagonist throughout the series.
As noted by Reddit user animalnitrateinmind, a Pope Leo XIV canonically exists within the Mass Effect universe. This fictional version of Leo XIV ascended to the Papacy as part of a plot by Cerberus, who assassinated the previous Pope, Clement XVI, with rosary beads coated in toxins. Leo XIV's ambitions for Catholicism in the 2170s aligned with Cerberus' belief that humanity's best route forward was to aggressively militarize and subjugate the Milky Way's other sentient races.
Cerberus' rise to prominence as the leading human-supremacist faction in Mass Effect's Milky Way was ruthless and bloody. The organization's hit list also included United North American States president Enrique Aguilar, Chinese People's Federation premier Ying Xiong, and Claude Menneau, who was poised to become the leader of the pro-human Terra Firma...
