The new pope Leo XIV has two brothers, John and Louis, who still live in the Chicago area, and both have shared several details about Robert Prevost’s childhood, from the baseball team, and even a revelation of what he did before the Conclave that elected him as pontiff.
Leo XIV, elected on the fourth ballot on Thursday, May 8, is the first American pope in history. He also holds Peruvian nationality due to his many years as a missionary and bishop in the Peruvian diocese of Chiclayo.
What did Pope Leo XIV do before the Conclave?
Louis Prevost told NBC News that “I am almost speechless. It’s just mind-blowing that my brother has been chosen as pope” and also added: “We always knew he was special, and we used to joke that he would be pope when he was six years old and things like that.”
John, a retired director of a Catholic school, shared that Robert knew from a young age that he wanted to become a priest. “Some children want to play war and be soldiers, and some girls want to play with dolls. But he wanted to play being a priest, so he would take our mother’s ironing board, put a tablecloth on it, and we had to go to mass,” revealed one of the older brothers of Leo XIV. He also said that when they went to mass in the context of a Catholic family, “he knew the prayers in Latin... He took it very seriously. It wasn’t a joke, it wasn’t a game.”
John Prevost himself mentioned that he spoke with his brother Robert before the Conclave and shared several important revelations, such as playing “Wordle, because it’s something we do regularly. Then we played Words with Friends to keep his mind away from real life.”
But the most striking thing he said was “I asked him, ‘Did you watch the movie Conclave to know how to behave?’ And he had just finished watching the movie so he knew how to behave. I said things like that because I wanted him to be distracted and laugh".
A “second Pope Francis”
Regarding “Bob’s” childhood, his brother John commented that “it was a normal childhood. There’s not much I can say about him, because he went to the Augustinian seminary right in Michigan after eighth grade. He went straight from the high school seminary to the Augustinian College at Villanova University and then to the year of theology. So he wasn’t home much, except during summer vacations."
Regarding the clerical life of the new pope, John Prevost mentions that “in his heart and soul, he wanted to be a missionary. He did not want to be a bishop, he did not want to be a cardinal, but that is what he was asked to do” and that “I believe we will see a second Pope Francis.”
John told the program “Good Morning America” from ABC that yesterday afternoon he was able to speak with his brother, the new pope, for 30 seconds.