New Pope's Older Brother: Leo XIV Watched Movie ‘Conclave' Just Before Entering Real Conclave
One of the new pope's brothers has given an interview to a Chicago TV station, shedding light on how Cardinal Robert Prevost prepared for the Vatican conclave that elected him pontiff. Turns out the prelate boned up with help from an Oscar-nominated film.
John Prevost, the middle of three Prevost brothers (Louis is the eldest and Robert – now Pope Leo XIV — is the youngest) told Chicago's NBC affiliate WMAQ-TV that he talked with Robert a day before the conclave began.
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'I said, 'Are you ready for this? Did you watch the movie Conclave, so you know how to behave?' And he had just finished watching the movie,' Prevost laughed, 'so he knew how to behave.'
Prevost explained, 'I wanted to take his mind off of it [the real conclave], you know, laugh about something because this is now an awesome responsibility.'
The drama-thriller directed by Edward Berger and starring Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, Isabella Rossellini, and Carlos Diehz, presents a fictional story of intrigue over the selection of a new pope to lead the Roman Catholic Church. After numerous ballots, a surprise candidate becomes the Vicar of Christ.
In the real conclave that ended Thursday, Cardinal Prevost was also considered by many observers to be an unlikely choice given that no American had ever been named pope. Even the Chicago-native Prevost apparently doubted his odds of being chosen.
'He didn't think so,' John Prevost said. 'I didn't believe it and Rob didn't believe it – I should say Pope Leo didn't believe it at all, because there's not going to be an American pope was the attitude.'
On the other hand, Prevost did think his brother was under serious consideration. 'What I was reading and what I was hearing was that there were three outstanding candidates that were in first, second and third place,' he noted, 'the cardinal from the Philippines, the [Vatican] secretary of state, and him [Robert].'
Pope Leo XIV, who succeeds Pope Francis after the previous pontiff's death at the age of 88, may not have a lot of time to watch movies now that he will be shepherding the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. However, John Prevost offered some insight into how his younger likes to take a break from weighty ecclesiastical issues when the two get a chance to talk.
'First we do Wordle, because this is a regular thing, okay,' he explained. 'We do Words with Friends. It's something to keep his mind off life in the real world.'
On a somewhat more sober note, Prevost talked about the family reaction to the stunning news of Cardinal Prevost's elevation to become only the 267th pope in history.
'It's totally unreal, it's totally surreal,' he said. 'It's a tremendous thing to take in, but it's something to be very proud of.'
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