Fr Arturo Sosa Abascal has been voted the next superior general of the Society of Jesus.

The Venezuelan becomes the 30th successor of Jesuit founder St Ignatius of Loyola and leader of the Catholic Church’s largest religious order.

He is the Jesuits’ first non-European leader in the society’s 476-year history, its first Latin-American leader and also the first superior general to be elected under a Jesuit pope.

He succeeds Fr Adolfo Nicolás, a Spanish priest who formally resigned this month aged 80.