Pope Leo XIV's neighbors predicted he would become first American pontiff when he was in kindergarten
Pope Leo XIV's childhood neighbors in suburban Chicago had predicted when he was just a small boy that he would become the first American pontiff, his brother said.
'The interesting thing is way back when he was in kindergarten or first grade, there was a parent, a mom, across the street — one across the street that way and another down the street,' the newly-elected pope's older brother, John Prevost, told WGN9 on Thursday.
'Both of them said he would be the first American Pope — at that age.'
Advertisement
Pope Leo XIV speaks during a mass with cardinals in the Sistine Chapel in The Vatican on May 9, 2025.
VATICAN MEDIA/AFP via Getty Images
Prevost divulged the wild prediction soon after his sibling was elected as the Catholic Church's 267th pontiff — making the Chicago-born missionary the first ever US pope.
'She sensed that at 6 years old,' he said in a separate interview with the Associated Press.
Advertisement
'How she did that, who knows. It took this long, but here he is, first American pope.'
Follow the latest on the election of Pope Leo XIV:
Prevost, for his part, said he always knew his brother — who was then Robert Prevost — was going to be a priest, noting that he left for seminary school after graduating eighth grade.
Now that he is the church's leader, Prevost said he expects his sibling to be a 'second Pope Francis.'
Advertisement
'He's not going to be real far left and he's not going to be real far right,' he said.
'Kind of right down the middle.'
'It's quite an honor; it's quite a once in a lifetime,' he added of his brother's election.
Advertisement
'But I think it's quite a responsibility and I think it's going to lead to bigger and better things, but I think people are going to watch him very closely to see what he's doing.'
With Post wires
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
44 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Albo urged to go hard on Trump
Anthony Albanese should play hardball with the US on beef as tariff talks grind on, Nationals leader David Littleproud says. American beef imports have emerged as a key negotiating item in the Albanese government's efforts to secure a tariff carve out. The Trump administration has been pushing for Australia to loosen import rules to include beef from cattle originating in Canada and Mexico but slaughtered in the US. The Prime Minister has confirmed biosecurity officials were reviewing the request but vowed his government would not 'compromise' Australia's strict bio laws. But the prospect of changing laws has sparked unease among cattle farmers worried about keeping bovine diseases well away from the country's shores. With beef imports seemingly key to securing a US tariff exemption, Mr Littleproud on Monday said there needed to be some 'perspective'. 'The United States does need Australia and other countries to import beef to be able to put on their hamburgers,' he told Sky News. 'They don't have the production capacity to be able to produce the type of beef that goes on their hamburgers. 'So this is a tax on themselves that they put on Australian beef.' Despite being subject to the blanket 10 per cent tariffs on foreign imports, Australian beef into the US has risen by 32 per cent this year, according to Meat and Livestock Australia. Meanwhile, the cost of domestically produced beef within the US has been climbing, as cattle farmers struggle with drought. Mr Littleproud said the Nationals were not against importing American beef provided that it was from cattle 'born in the United States and bred all the way through to their slaughter in the United States'. But beef from cattle originating in third countries was a risk because 'we don't have the traceability that we have over the US production system'. 'And that's why Anthony Albanese needed to rule out straight away that he would not open that up to those cattle that were born in Canada, Mexico, or anywhere else in the Americas, because that poses a significant risk unless we can trace those cattle,' Mr Littleproud said. Mr Albanese has been clear in saying he would 'never loosen any rules regarding our biosecurity'. But he has also said that if a deal can be struck 'in a way that protects our biosecurity, of course we don't just say no'. Mr Littleproud acknowledged Mr Albanese's words but said 'when you see reports from departments saying this is what's on the table in terms of negotiations – where there's smoke, there's fire'. In addition to the baseline 10 per cent duties on foreign goods, Australia has also been subjected to 50 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminium. Only the UK has been able to secure a partial exemption from the Donald Trump's tariffs. A key UK concession was scrapping its 20 per cent imposts on American beef and raising the import quota to 13,000 metric tonnes. But with many British goods still subject to tariffs, analysts have questioned whether the deal was worth it. The US has trade surpluses with both the UK and Australia. Though, Australia also has a free-trade agreement with the US, meaning goods should be traded mostly uninhibited. The Albanese government has repeatedly criticised Mr Trump's decision to slap tariffs on Australian products as 'economic self-harm' and 'not the act of a friend'.
Hamilton Spectator
2 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
New crime novels feature a locked-room mystery, a Scarborough stabbing and a Jan. 6 insurrectionist
It's a weird time in American politics, which means it's a perfect time for Florida novelist Carl Hiaasen to plumb the satirical depths of corruption and malfeasance in his home state. His last novel, 2020's 'Squeeze Me,' suffered from a subplot that attempted to satirize the once-and-current occupant of the White House, a Falstaffian spray-tanned figure so outrageous as to be almost impervious to satire. For 'Fever Beach,' Hiaasen wisely steers clear of POTUS and his inept administration, preferring instead to focus on wanton corruption at a lower level. 'Fever Beach,' by Carl Hiaasen, Alfred A. Knopf, $34.99. The new novel begins with a meet-cute on an airplane between Twilly Spree and Viva Morales. Twilly is a stock Hiaasen character: an independently wealthy Florida do-gooder who spends his time making life miserable for folks who litter, antagonize the local wildlife or otherwise cause environmental or social havoc. Viva's job is administering the foundation of a couple of rich right-wing octogenarians whose fundraising operates as a money-laundering front to finance the campaign of far-right (and profoundly stupid) congressman Clure Boyette, in hot water with his obstreperous father over a scandal involving an underage prostitute named Galaxy. Add in Viva's landlord — a Jan. 6 insurrectionist named Dale Figgo who heads the Strokers for Freedom (a white nationalist militia whose name is a rebuke to the Proud Boys' insistence on refraining from masturbation) — and his cohort, the violent and reckless Jonas Onus, and you have all the ingredients for a classic Hiaasen caper. Twenty years ago, German-born author Leonie Swann debuted one of the most delightful detective teams in genre history: a flock of sheep on the trail of the person responsible for killing their shepherd with a spade through the chest. After a two-decade absence, Miss Maple, Othello, Mopple the Whale, and the other woolly sleuths are back on the case, this time on behalf of their new herder, Rebecca, the daughter of the early book's victim. 'Big Bad Wool,' by Leonie Swann, Soho Crime, $38.95. Rebecca, her intrusive Mum, and the sheep are overwintering in the lee of a French chateau where there are rumours of a marauding Garou — a werewolf — that is responsible for mutilating deer in the nearby woods. Among other strange occurrences, Rebecca's red clothing is found torn to pieces and some sheep go missing — and soon enough there's a dead human for the flock, in the uncomfortable company of a group of local goats, to deal with. 'Big Bad Wool' is a charming romp, whose pleasure comes largely from the ironic distance between the sheep's understanding of the world and that of the people who surround them. ('The humans in the stories did plenty of ridiculous things. Spring cleaning, revenge and diets.') Their enthusiasm and excitement results in prose that is a bit too reliant on exclamation points, and some of the more heavy-handed puns (like the sheep's insistence on 'woolpower') seem forced, but this is nevertheless a fun variation on the traditional country cosy. Romance novelist Uzma Jalaluddin takes a turn into mystery with this new book about amateur sleuth Kausar Khan. A widow in her late 50s, Kausar returns to Toronto from North Bay to help her daughter, Sana, who has been accused of stabbing her landlord to death in her Scarborough mall boutique. The police — including Sana's old flame, Ilyas — are convinced Sana is the prime suspect, but Kausar is determined to prove her daughter innocent. 'Detective Aunty,' by Uzma Jalaluddin, HarperCollins, $25.99. Her investigation involves a couple of competing developers, both of whom want to purchase the land on which the mall stands, along with members of the dead man's family and fellow shopkeepers. On the domestic front, Kausar finds herself concerned with Sana's deteriorating marriage to her husband, Hamza, and her teenage granddaughter's sullenness and mysterious nighttime disappearances. Jalaluddin does a good job integrating the various elements of her plot, and the familial relationships are nicely calibrated. The momentum is impeded, however, by a preponderance of clichés ('Playing devil's advocate, Kausar asked …'; 'Kausar's blood ran cold') and a tendency to hold the reader's hand by defining every easily Googleable Urdu word or greeting too programmatically. More attention to the writing on the line level would have helped move this one along. Yukito Ayatsuji's clever postmodern locked-room mystery was first published in Japanese in 2009; it appears for the first time in English translation, which is good news for genre fans. 'The Labyrinth House Murders,' by Yukito Ayatsuji, Pushkin Vertigo, $24.95. Ayatsuji's narrative is framed by Shimada, a mystery aficionado, who is presented with a novelization about murders that took place at the home of famed mystery writer Miyagaki Yotaro, found dead by his own hand soon after the manuscript opens. Miyagaki has left a bizarre challenge for the writers gathered at his Byzantine Labyrinth House: each must write a story featuring a murder, and the victim must be the writer him- or herself. The winning author, as adjudicated by a group of critics also convened at Labyrinth House, will inherit Miyagaki's sizable fortune. As the writers compete for the reward, bodies start falling in real life and Ayatsuji has a grand time playing metafictional games with his readers, challenging them to figure out who the culprit is in the context of a story that owes more than a small debt to Agatha Christie's 'And Then There Were None.' But Ayatsuji does Christie one better; it is only once the afterword, which closes the framed narrative, has unfolded that the reader fully understands how cleverly the author has conceived his multi-layered fictional trap.
The Hill
3 hours ago
- The Hill
Latinas for Trump co-founder blasts ‘inhumane' immigrant arrests
Florida state senator Ileana Garcia (R), co-founder of Latinas for Trump, issued a sharp rebuke of President Trump on Sunday as his administration seeks to ramp up deportations and other actions against undocumented immigrants. Garcia took particular issue with reported tactics in southern Florida, where immigration officials have allegedly been making arrests in immigration courts and taking other steps to target individuals otherwise in compliance with legal orders. 'This is not what we voted for,' Garcia wrote in a post on X. 'I have always supported Trump, @realDonaldTrump, through thick and thin. However, this is unacceptable and inhumane.' 'I understand the importance of deporting criminal aliens, but what we are witnessing are arbitrary measures to hunt down people who are complying with their immigration hearings—in many cases, with credible fear of persecution claims—all driven by a Miller-like desire to satisfy a self-fabricated deportation goal,' she continued in her post, referring to White House homeland security adviser and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. 'This undermines the sense of fairness and justice that the American people value,' Garcia added. The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment. Garcia's comments followed criticism from Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), who issued a statement saying she's 'fully aware' of and 'heartbroken… because of the recent immigration actions of the administration.' She said the administration's actions have 'left thousands exposed to deportation' and jeopardized 'our duty to due process that every democracy must guarantee.' Salazar said anyone with a pending asylum claim 'deserves to go through the legal process,' noting that, 'It is an indisputable fact' that most of these claims come from people who fled Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, which Salazar noted are 'the three most brutal regimes in our hemisphere and sworn enemies of the United States.' 'I wholeheartedly agree that the administration must kick out every criminal here illegally, just as President Trump promised. Many still remain, and we should keep our focus on them,' Salazar added, noting that she plans to meet with administration officials this coming week. Garcia issued her statement in response to Salazar's remarks, saying, 'I stand with Congresswoman Salazar.' 'As the state senator who represents her district and the daughter of Cuban refugees, who are now just as American, if not more so than Stephen Miller, I am deeply disappointed by these actions. And I will not stand down,' Garcia wrote.
