section_path: Prior provincial and prior general (1998–2013)
section_name: Prior provincial and prior general (1998–2013)
paragraph_text: Prior provincial and prior general (1998–2013)
  
  In 1998, Prevost was elected Prior Provincial of the Order of St. Augustine's Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel based in Chicago, assuming the role on March 8, 1999. In 2000, he permitted James Ray, an Augustinian priest, to reside at St. John Stone Friary in Chicago under supervision. Ray had been suspended from public ministry since 1991 due to credible accusations that he had sexually abused minors. Prevost's placing of Ray in a friary close to St. Thomas School was the subject of reporting in 2021, prior to his appointment to the Vatican. Ray was moved to other housing in 2002 after American bishops implemented stricter rules in the Dallas Charter.
  
  Elected Prior General of the Order of Saint Augustine in 2001, Prevost served two consecutive, six-year terms until 2013. During his tenure as the global head of the Augustinian order, Prevost lived and worked in Rome, but frequently traveled around the world. It was in that capacity that in 2004, he visited Buenos Aires and met Cardinal Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio for the first time. Their early encounters are reported to have not gone well. Prevost later explained that at the time, he thought he would never become a bishop after Bergoglio was elected pope in 2013, but has declined to reveal what they initially disagreed upon. However, they were able to reconcile their differences before Prevost left Rome for Chicago in 2013.
  
  From 2013 to 2014, Prevost served as director of formation at the Convent of St. Augustine in Chicago, and as first councilor and provincial vicar of the Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel.