John Prevost knew there was a chance his brother could be elected pope.
“Last Saturday when I was at church, one of the priests came over and told me the odds in Las Vegas were 18 to 1,” said Prevost, who lives in suburban Chicago. “He didn’t have a doubt. He thought it would definitely be my brother.”
But Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who was preparing for the conclave, shrugged it off when his older brother called from Illinois.
“He said, ‘No way, not going to happen,’” recalled John Prevost (71) who is retired from a career as an educator and school principal.
Of course, it did happen. Prevost is now Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff. And for his friends and family back in Illinois, where the pope grew up, everything is different.
In a wide-ranging interview on Thursday afternoon at his home in New Lenox, a tidy city of 27,000 people about 40 miles southwest of downtown Chicago, John Prevost reflected on his brother’s ascent to the papacy, the new pope’s values and his American roots.
Leo, whom Prevost is accustomed to calling Rob, “has great, great desire to help the downtrodden and the disenfranchised, the people who are ignored,” Prevost said. He predicted that his brother would carry on the legacy of his predecessor, Pope Francis.
“The best way I could describe him right now is that he will be following in Francis’s footsteps,” Prevost said. “They were very good friends. They knew each other before he was pope, before my brother even was bishop.”
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Prevost said he usually spoke by phone with his brother every night, but had not talked to him since the conclave began. He said the new pope was “simple, really. He’s not going to go out for a 19-course meal.” Last August, Prevost said, his brother stayed with him at his home in New Lenox for a few weeks.
The brothers grew up in Dolton, Illinois, just outside Chicago, and attended church and school at St. Mary of the Assumption Parish on Chicago’s South Side. Their father, Louis Prevost, was a school superintendent and their mother, Mildred Prevost, was a librarian who was deeply involved in parish life. In addition to John and Robert, now Leo, the Prevosts had one other son, who now lives in Florida.
The future pope left Illinois to attend high school in Michigan and college in Pennsylvania, but returned to his home state for graduate school and for various postings with the Augustinians, the religious order that he joined. Leo also spent much of his career in Peru.
John Prevost described Pope Leo as “middle of the road” and said, “I don’t think we’ll see extremes either way.” But, he said, his brother would not be afraid to use this new platform.
“I don’t think he’ll stay quiet for too long if he has something to say,” Prevost said. “I know he’s not happy with what’s going on with immigration. I know that for a fact. How far he’ll go with it is only one’s guess, but he won‘t just sit back. I don’t think he’ll be the silent one.”
Asked if his brother had expressed a desire to be pope, Prevost said “not really.” But over time, as he ascended the ranks of the church, his answer to that question had started to shift.
“It was ‘absolutely not, absolutely not, God forbid,’” Prevost said. “And then it became, ‘Well, if it’s what God wants, then we’ll deal with it.’”
Thursday was a blur for Prevost, whose phone rang constantly during an interview and whose street was lined with news trucks.
“I get that people are interested because it’s a first in so many ways,” Prevost said.
Asked what his parents, who died years ago, would be thinking, he said, “They would be on cloud nine. Absolutely incredible. You couldn’t even dream this.”
When he is finally able to reach his brother, Prevost said he planned to ask what he would do for relaxation and whether he would ever really be off the job. He said he hoped to go see him in Rome, but did not know yet how that would work.
In the immediate term, though, there was one important fact to clear up. The pope, Prevost said, was not a fan of the Chicago Cubs, as some had reported. He had always cheered for the White Sox.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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