‘I don't think he'll be the silent one': Pope Leo XIV‘s brother reflects on his values and roots
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.
READ MORE
Undated picture of Robert Prevost. Photograph: Courtesy of the Midwest Augustinian Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel
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.
American cardinal Robert Prevost was elected pope by the world's cardinals on the second day of the conclave. He is the first American pontiff.
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.'
[
Pope Leo XIV: First US-born pontiff addresses the faithful in St Peter's Square
Opens in new window
]
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.
John Prevost, brother of Robert Prevost, Pope Leo XIV. Photograph: New York Times
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.
[
'It's like our Olympics': Irish priests among stunned faithful in St Peter's Square as Pope Leo XIV emerges
Opens in new window
]
'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
.
2025 The New York Times Company
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RTÉ News
2 days ago
- RTÉ News
Exhibition marks 400th anniversary of St Oliver Plunkett's birth
The official launch of an exhibition to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the birth of St Oliver Plunkett will take place in Drogheda, Co Louth today. The exhibition will include a number of artefacts and memorabilia associated with the iconic saint that have never previously been on public display. St Oliver Plunkett was born in Loughcrew in Co Meath on 1 November 1625 and was ordained to the priesthood in Rome in 1654, having studied at the Irish College in the city. He later became the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland and maintained his duties in the face of the Penal Laws when the Catholic Church was being suppressed. St Oliver Plunkett was eventually arrested and tried for treason in London. He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn on 1 July 1681. His head was rescued by a group of his friends and eventually made its way to St Peter's Church in Drogheda, where it remains today in a specially made shrine. A series of events is taking place in the town this year to mark 400 years since St Oliver Plunkett's birth, and also the 50 years since his can canonisation in 1975, when he became the first newly-made Irish saint for almost 700 years. The official launch of the St Oliver 400 Commemorative Exhibition will take place at the Drogheda Civic Offices on Fair Street. The exhibition will include St Oliver's Crozier loaned from a private collection, the original ebony casing which housed the saint's head and an original coffin plate from the Monastery of St Catherine of Siena in Drogheda. Other items going on public display are three silver crucifixes attributed to the saint and vestments loaned from St Patrick's Cathedral in Armagh and Mullingar Museum. The exhibition also includes a large collection of banners, books, coins and a written account of the then archbishop's trial in London in 1681. Co-chair of the Saint Oliver 400 Community Group, Tommy Burns said: "It is fitting that St Oliver who reformed the clergy, built schools, brought peace and hope to the people is still so fondly remembered in Ireland, and exemplified in this important exhibition in Drogheda, 400 years after his birth." Meanwhile, local historian Séamus Bellew, who specialises in heraldry and genealogy, said: "This exhibition brings together a rare collection of items, comprising books, brasses and the reliquary that housed St Oliver's head, all from the 17th century and much more besides...a must see." Thomas McEvoy, Deputy Chief Executive of Louth County Council, said it is important to commemorate the life of St Oliver as his story is one of "resilience and integrity during some of the most turbulent periods in our history." Mr McEvoy said: "His unwavering commitment to peace, reconciliation, and education serves as a timeless example for us all and the Saint Oliver 400 Exhibition brings this legacy to life in a new and powerful way. "On behalf of Louth County Council, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the Saint Oliver 400 Community Group who have organised this exhibition here in our Civic Offices in the heart of Drogheda." The exhibition runs at 'The Exhibition Space' at Drogheda Civic Offices on weekdays until 4 July.
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Irish Times
Yes, we allow our 9-year-old out on her own. The real monsters are inside on the internet
This is how it started: Daughter Number Four would ask to take little expeditions by herself. A walk around the block or a short bike ride. And, because she's nine and we want to foster a bit of independence and resilience and all that good stuff, we'd say yes. Not that this was easy. The first few times we were in bits, glued to the front windows waiting for her to return. Then we'd have to act all cool when she got back, unharmed and totally unfazed by her solo travel experience. But quickly – far more quickly than we imagined we would – we got used to it. There was a natural progression to allowing her to go to the park – a five-minute walk away – where she would meet her friends. The occasional weekend excursion turned into every weekend. Now we can't keep her in the house. There is a golden rule that you should never, ever criticise another parent's decisions. To their face, that is. Wait until you get back to your own house. But given that you're reading this, you can get stuck into the judgment straight away. There are parents who wouldn't dream of allowing their children to leave the house by themselves. The world is too dangerous, too full of potential threats. Or that's the way it seems. READ MORE [ My daughter drags us on to rollercoasters but is wary of the monkey bars. People are a mystery Opens in new window ] Being a parent nowadays seems to involve the grim business of risk assessment. So here is ours: last Christmas, we got her this phone/watch yoke that allows her to call friends and family and also allows us to track her location. Her friends have similar devices. We know where she is and we can check in on her to make sure she's okay. Some of her friends live right beside the park, so we know an adult is less than a minute away. We also live in a very child-friendly area: the park is routinely filled with children and parents. If Daughter Number Four got into some sort of difficulty, I'm sure they would intervene. But most of all, it's down to Daughter Number Four herself. She's careful crossing roads (which aren't busy anyway), and it's been drilled into her to be wary of adults she doesn't know. Especially if they claim to know me or her mother. Does this absolutely guarantee her safety? Of course not. We could have opted to go full helicopter and accompany her to the park, but that goes against the very idea of going out to play, of exploring her environment, using her imagination, of building up her own social network – the same way we did when we were children. The slight risk is worth that enormous benefit. And how great is the 'risk' anyway? Panic-inducing social media and nervous parents WhatsApp groups would have you believe that our public spaces are crawling with child abductors. But such cases are, in reality, exceptionally rare. Keep them at home, and give them internet access. That's where the real monsters are. You might have detected a slightly defensive tone here: and you'd be right. Every time she leaves the house, we both experience a low hum of anxiety. We check in on her regularly. She always answers our calls and comes home when she's told. And when she returns, she always has something to tell us: a squabble among her group or something she witnessed in the park. One day she ended up going to a barbecue. On a recent Saturday I rang her to tell her to come home for lunch. She answered, 'Okay. How long will that take?' And for some reason that flung me back to my own childhood. Not a specific memory; more a feeling of what it was like. It's not the most appropriate word, but it was intoxicating, being out playing with friends. Far more important than boring lunch. And that's how it should be.
Irish Examiner
4 days ago
- Irish Examiner
'After 10 decades of life, you need to be matter-of-fact about death'
Jennifer Sleeman, aged 95, is so matter-of-fact about death that she had a coffin made for herself several years ago. She asked the man who carved her kitchen table if he would make one and when, a little surprised, he agreed, she lay down on the rug in her sitting-room to be measured up. 'We all die and I think it's sad that we don't talk about death,' she says with a gentle, disarming pragmatism that runs through all of her conversations on the subject. Jennifer Sleeman. In the 10 decades since her birth on September 23, 1929, she has been a dairy farmer, a pre-marriage counsellor, an environmental campaigner, a Green Party candidate, a Fair Trade activist, and, more recently, an advocate for women priests and a more open attitude to death. Photo courtesy of the Sleeman family. And there have been a few — in a podcast with her son Andrew (Fr Simon) Sleeman, the Mindful Monk at Glenstal Abbey, with artist Sheelagh Broderick, outlining her funeral playlist (it includes Ol' Man River sung by Paul Robeson), and with her grandson Paul Power who made a beautiful short film entitled For When I Die (2018), as well as the words that are written on the folder containing all her post-death arrangements. There are shots of the aforementioned coffin, standing tall in a bedroom in her home in Clonakilty, 'waiting patiently for me', as she casually puts it. HISTORY HUB If you are interested in this article then no doubt you will enjoy exploring the various history collections and content in our history hub. Check it out HERE and happy reading Jennifer is neither sentimental nor mawkish; she is simply articulating 'some of the messages she wants to get out there'. In essence, that death is inevitable and we should try to prepare for what she terms a 'good death', one with family around and everything in order, rather than her mother's 'very bad death', which still upsets her. Mother and daughter had words the night before she died and they never had a chance to make it up. 'I could cry about it now. It was just so sad and in a way, I kind of blame myself because for most of my life I did what my mother told me. I was a good daughter. And if I had spoken up a bit more about my own needs and my own thoughts, perhaps the end might have been better,' she says in For When I Die. The need to speak up is a theme that runs through Jennifer Sleeman's extraordinary life. Just eight years before, on the eve of her 81st birthday, she made international headlines when she called for a single-Sunday boycott of Mass to protest about the lack of roles for women in the Catholic Church. Jennifer Sleeman in Ireland in the 1970s. Photo courtesy of the Sleeman family If people didn't want to skip Mass, they were asked to attend wearing a green ribbon to let the powers-that-be know that women were no longer happy to be second-class citizens. The letters and phone calls of support, which came from men and women in Ireland, Australia, the US, and Canada, vastly outnumbered the disapproving ones. Jennifer still relishes the attention, and laughs heartily when she recalls having to turn down one interview request because she was already booked to talk to the BBC. Ask if she thinks the Church is changing and she mentions that interfaith minister, Rev. Dr Nóirín Ní Riain visited her yesterday. 'She's almost a priest.' Jennifer Sleeman is in a nursing home now — 'one of the annoying things is that I spend all my time in bed. I'm just old' — and is slightly bemused that anyone would be interested in her life. But what a life. In the 10 decades since her birth on September 23, 1929, she has been a dairy farmer, a pre-marriage counsellor, an environmental campaigner, a Green Party candidate, a Fair Trade activist, and, more recently, an advocate for women priests and a more open attitude to death. Jennifer Sleeman. All she wanted to be as a child growing up in South Africa was a cowboy. She is also a mother of six — Andrew, Duncan, Paddy, Mary, Katey and Patricia (aka Bushy) — which she considers her greatest achievement. That short summary of her life to date shows that she has lived her own philosophy: 'I don't want them to say she died at such and such an age, rather that she lived until she was that age.' All she wanted to be as a child growing up in South Africa was a cowboy, she says, recalling the long pony rides with her sister Alix when they were almost too young to be let wander alone. But then, in a fascinating account of her early life, she writes about how safe and idyllic life was on the fruit farm run by her parents, Loïs and James Graham, a royal navy reservist. It 'was laid out in orchards of fruit trees, apples, pears, and peaches and there were two nectarine trees and [a] cherry [tree] on which we gorged when they were ripe … I can't remember lessons being very onerous. We swam in the water tanks used for irrigating, we rode, we looked after our animals, our clothes were minimal, one dress, shorts, jodhpurs, and for the winter, yellow polo-neck pullovers.' All that changed when the Second World War broke out. Jennifer Sleeman in the 1940s. Photo courtesy of the Sleeman family Jennifer's father was recalled to the navy and the family returned to her mother's native Scotland, counterintuitively moving nearer the fighting rather than farther away. The 10-year-old Jennifer didn't see it that way, though. Some eight decades later, it is quite something to hear her talk with glee about the excitement of sailing back to Dumfries through 'submarine-infested waters', to use her evocative phrase. She joins her hands to evoke the prayers she and her sister said on the journey: 'Each night, we ended our prayers with, 'and please God let us be torpedoed.' We thought that would be great fun. Mum was wise enough not to disabuse us of the notion.' In any case, their mum had knitted red, white, and blue bobbles for their hats, which they thought would keep them safe if they found themselves bobbing in the waves. It wasn't long before the harsh reality of war dawned with a jolt: 'I have vivid memories of being taken to see the army coming home from Dunkirk. Lorry after lorry of exhausted soldiers, we stood on the dusty roadside and waved, and mum told us never to forget seeing the soldiers coming home. I haven't,' Jennifer later wrote. Jennifer Sleeman at her wedding to Brian Sleeman in 1949. Photo courtesy of the Sleeman family Little did she know then that, nine years later, she would marry one of the soldiers who didn't make it home. Her future husband, lieutenant-colonel Richard Brian Sleeman, of the royal sussex regiment, was captured in Dunkirk and spent the war in a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany, along with captain Harry Freeman Jackson, from Mallow in Co Cork. That friendship explained how the couple later ended up in Ireland — Jennifer now thinks of herself as Irish — but we are getting ahead of the story. After the war, in 1949, Jennifer married Brian Sleeman and moved to Berlin where he was secretary to the general of the Allied sector (British, French, and American) in a divided, bombed-out city. Jennifer is looking at her album of photographs explaining the political context because, as she says, her grandchildren don't know that Berlin was divided between the Allies. There are photographs of some of the streets reduced to rubble and while she didn't see the worst of the devastation in the city centre, she met some of the women who were victims of the mass rape perpetrated by Soviets on tens of thousands of German women. Jennifer's uncle, a linguist, had stayed with two women in Berlin before the war and, against advice, she snuck out to visit them. She found them living in a tiny flat and heard that they had been raped by the Russians. 'I felt awfully sorry for them.' She feared for the women's safety and for the young girl who was living with them. At times, she worried for her own safety too. 'I used to feel a bit afraid. What if the Russians just walked in, there was absolutely nothing to stop them coming in from their sector of Berlin,' she says. Damage in post-war Berlin. She lived there with her husband for two years after the war. Photo courtesy of the Sleeman family It didn't happen, though, and those post-war years also hold more amusing memories, such as the time the German gardener dug up everything they had planted in their garden and replanted it in rows. For a woman who later spent many happy hours gardening without gloves so that she could feel the dirt under her fingernails, that particular anecdote still sends her into hoots of laughter. 'You couldn't believe that, but it's true,' she says. Berlin is also associated with the happy arrival of the couple's first son, Andrew. Two more sons followed. Duncan was born in South Africa and Paddy in England before the couple acted on captain Freeman-Jackson's invitation to move to Ireland, where they developed a dairy farm, Killuragh Glen, in Killavullen in Cork in the 1950s. Jennifer Sleeman in 1943. Photo courtesy of the Sleeman family Three more children arrived, Mary, Katey, and Patricia, and Jennifer Sleeman embraced her new life as mother and dairy farmer, milking cows. 'I loved that. I think I was quite good at it too,' she says. Even now, she looks out the window on these lovely summer mornings and remembers how lovely it was going to get the cows in all those years ago. The conversation continues, going forward and back over Jennifer Sleeman's 'long, happy, busy life', as she describes it. There were hard, sad days too. One of the hardest things, she says, was watching her husband suffer with Alzheimer's disease. She converted to Catholicism in the 1960s after meeting a nice priest. She had also seen the comfort her husband's faith gave him. Jennifer Sleeman skiing in Germany in the 1950s. Photo courtesy of the Sleeman family. Solace for her, however, came later when she was able to talk to another woman, Margaret, whose husband was suffering from Alzheimer's. 'She always said I was such a help to her. Unless you've been there, you cannot understand it.' Unbidden, another memory resurfaces; the time she missed the only bus to Dumfries during the petrol-rationed days of war and was forced to walk the seven miles home in gathering darkness. 'I remember some kind, kind woman — the people you never forget — came on her bicycle. She got off and walked with me. That's the sort of thing you remember forever. You really do.' After her husband died in 1988, Jennifer moved to Clonakilty where she built a house. 'That was interesting because they don't expect women to build houses. I said to the builder, 'If you make a good job, I'll tell everybody. And if you make a bad job, I'll tell everybody too.' Well, you know, he did a good job.' Jennifer Sleeman: 'I don't want them to say she died at such and such an age, rather that she lived until she was that age.' She went on to have several more 'incarnations'. At a time of life when many slow down, she did the opposite and began a new career as a pre-marriage counsellor, using her free travel pass to go around the country giving courses, and later training the trainers. She also got deeply involved in the Fairtrade movement after her daughter Patricia visited Nicaragua in 2001 and saw how much trading based on transparency and respect benefitted local communities. After attending a 'Food We Buy' conference run by North Cork Organic Group, Jennifer started a Fairtrade campaign at her own kitchen table in Clonakilty, with the help of Cionnaith Ó Súilleabháin, of Sinn Féin, Canon Ian Jonas, Church of Ireland minister, and the late Fr Ger Galvin, a Catholic priest. Again, she used her free travel to visit towns and villages all over the country to encourage support for farmers in the developing world, and to raise awareness of the devastating effects of climate change. In 2007, she was named the Cork Environmental Forum Outstanding Individual for her work. On a personal level, she got immense pleasure from the natural environment and worked in her own garden into her late 80s. Jennifer Sleeman has a gentle, disarming pragmatism that runs through all of her conversations on the subject of death. The oak trees growing in it tell a poignant story about the lasting scars of war. Jennifer lost a cousin and two uncles in the Second World War. One of them, her uncle John, was shot down over the Netherlands, and many years later she visited his burial place in Velp with her sister Alix. 'I picked up sprouting acorns on the path outside the graveyard and hid them at the bottom of my bag. They are now the oak trees growing in my garden in Clonakilty and to my delight I have found that they have had 'babies', little saplings which have an interesting history.' Speaking of interesting histories, we have only scratched the surface of the life of a woman who has seen and done so much. She says the width of life is more important than the length but she has clearly had both in hers, even if she doesn't always see the point in talking about it: 'How can you listen to me yapping on?' With the greatest pleasure and ease, though we are sadly running out of space. I ask for a piece of advice she might have given her younger self: 'Don't be afraid to speak up and do what you want to do in life.'
