Pope Leo XIV ignored last-second advice from his brother on what name he should adopt as pontiff.
John Prevost, a retired Catholic school principal in suburban Chicago, revealed that he spoke with his younger brother by phone on the eve of the conclave and urged him not to go by Leo should he win the papal election.
The reasoning, Prevost explained, was a botched recollection of Vatican history.
“He said, ‘What should my name be?’” John, 71, recalled to local newspaper the Daily Herald. “We started rattling off names just to rattle off names. I told him it shouldn’t be Leo because it will be the 13th. But he must’ve done some research to see it’s actually the 14th.”
Then still known as Robert, the Chicago native would soon be sequestered with 133 of his fellow cardinals, naturally the most knowledgeable Vatican buffs on the planet. It is unclear who, if anyone, informed the future pope that taking the name Leo would make him the 14th—since Pope Leo XIII had led the church between 1878 and 1903—and not the unlucky No. 13.
Any of those cardinals could have emerged as pope on Thursday, but, to the shock of Vatican experts, oddsmakers, and especially Prevost, it was his brother who appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Prevost said he knew there was an “inkling of a chance” Leo may be the next pope, “but I really was just as surprised as everyone when they said his name.”
He told the Herald that he learned of his sibling‘s fate while speaking on the phone with his niece, who is the daughter of the pope’s other brother, Louis, who lives in Florida. Like most of the Catholic world, Prevost first heard his loved one’s name announced live on TV.
“We both couldn’t believe it,” he said of his niece. “Then the phone, the iPad, and my cellphone just went nuts.”
Prevost joked that everyone he knew was texting or calling him on Thursday, except the pope himself.
He added that he and his siblings had a “normal childhood” on the south side of Chicago. They were raised Catholic by a school superintendent father and a school librarian mother in the Dolton neighborhood.
The Vatican said the pope’s father, Louis Marius Prevost, was of French and Italian descent, and his mother, Mildred Martínez, was of Spanish descent. He studied at the Minor Seminary of the Augustinian Fathers and at Villanova University in Philadelphia, where he graduated with a mathematics degree in 1977.
Prevost recalled that Leo, known as “Rob” when he was little, was sure from a young age that he would dedicate his life to the church. He did just that, spending two decades as a missionary in Peru before being appointed a cardinal by Francis. His most recent position was at the Vatican, running an office that selects and manages bishops.
“It’s kind of strange, but all three of us knew what we wanted to do very early in life,” Prevost told the Herald, noting he desired a career in education while Louis wanted to join the military.
Leo, meanwhile, “knew he was going to be a priest from the time he could walk.”
“A neighbor once said he was going to be pope someday,” Prevost said. “How’s that for a prognostication?”
The post New Pope’s Brother Told Him: Don’t Choose Leo appeared first on The Daily Beast.
