Latest news with #MildredPrevost
New York Times
11-05-2025
- General
- New York Times
The Mother Whose Catholic Faith Inspired the Future Pope
Her friends called her Millie. The future pope called her Ma. Mildred Prevost, whose youngest son, Robert, would one day take the name Pope Leo XIV, cut her own extraordinary path of ambition, talent and religious devotion through her hometown of Chicago. Born Mildred Agnes Martinez, she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in education in 1947 and attended graduate school at DePaul University, an academic path that was unusual for women at that time. She waited until she was in her mid-30s, Cook County records show, to marry Louis Prevost, who was eight years her junior. Mrs. Prevost was in her late 30s and early 40s when she had children, three boys born in a span of just over four years. An enthusiastic performer, a regular in costumed skits and plays at school fund-raisers, and an accomplished singer, Mrs. Prevost once recorded her own rendition of 'Ave Maria,' a hymn of considerable difficulty for an amateur. 'That was her trademark song,' her oldest son, who was also named Louis, said in an interview on Saturday. 'She would belt it out.' Most dominant in Mrs. Prevost's life were her family and deep Catholic faith, people who knew her said, the latter a lifelong conviction that made her a central force behind Robert's path to the priesthood and beyond. Mrs. Prevost died in 1990, after being diagnosed with cancer and enduring chemotherapy treatments. But her sons will reunite in Rome on the week of Mother's Day, days after the youngest of the three was elected leader of the world's 1.4 billion Roman Catholics. Robert Prevost spent his childhood in the Chicago suburb of Dolton, immersed in the Catholic culture that revolved around the family parish, St. Mary of the Assumption, on the city's South Side. Catholic school was a generational family tradition. Mildred Prevost graduated from Immaculata High School on the North Side in 1929, according to newspaper records, and was the youngest daughter in a large Catholic family. (Unlike her son Robert and nearly all her eventual neighbors on the South Side, she was a Cubs fan.) It was clear from the time he was a young boy that Robert Prevost would become a priest, his family said, and his mother was a fervent supporter of that desire. When he wanted to attend a minor seminary in Michigan for high school, she and his father allowed him to go. 'They gave him a lot of confidence,' said Bishop Daniel Turley, who met the future pope when he was a teenager, fresh out of the Michigan school. 'When he went into the Augustinian seminary, he did it with the encouragement of his loving mother.' Bishop Turley recalled meeting Mrs. Prevost — close to a half-century ago — and being struck by her pride in her young son and her own intense Catholic conviction. 'She was practically a saint,' he said. 'She was just one of those people you meet and you feel the presence of God.' Mrs. Prevost made sure to drill her sons in practical matters, the younger Louis Prevost said. He remembers standing in the family kitchen as his mother explained the steps of a recipe, making any one of her favorites: goulash, chicken Lo Mein, homemade pizza or roast beef. 'We learned how to cook, we learned how to clean, we learned how to iron clothes,' he said. 'She taught us all the skills needed to be on your own and support yourself.' But Mrs. Prevost also appeared to have been driven by intellectual interests. She volunteered in Catholic school libraries. In 1950, she reviewed 'Helena,' a novel by Evelyn Waugh, for a book talk with a local group of Catholic women, and according to The Chicago Tribune, in 1952 participated in a forum titled 'The Catholic Woman in the Professional World.' 'Our whole family was geared toward education,' Louis Prevost said. 'I think she may have wanted to be a teacher one day, but that never went to fruition because she got married and had kids.' She and her husband, who died in 1997, probably could not have imagined that their youngest son would someday become pope, said John Prevost, another brother of the pope who lives in the Chicago suburbs. 'They would be on Cloud 9,' he said.
Daily Mail
10-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
It's like winning the lottery! Owner of Pope Leo's childhood home pulls it off the market with its price set to 'skyrocket' following appointment of first ever American pontiff
The price of the newly elected Pope's modest childhood home is set to 'skyrocket', The Mail on Sunday has learned. The three-bedroom brick bungalow in Dolton, Chicago, had been put on the market for $245,957 (£184,000) on May 5. But it was immediately removed again once Cardinal Robert Prevost, 69, was appointed Pope Leo XIV on Thursday. The owner of the property described the situation as better than winning the lottery. The first American Pope in history lived in the house for two decades with his father Louis, a teacher, and librarian mother Mildred and two brothers. The family is believed to have sold the property after the death of the Chicago-born Pope's parents. Mildred died in 1990 and Louis in 1997. When the MoS visited the house this week neighbours said the property had fallen into disrepair and had been used as a drug den. Donna Sagna, 50, who lives next door, said: 'The last couple of years I was pulling my hair out. 'One family was selling drugs right here and then a second family moved in and there was a lot of violence and fighting and shooting. I was really sad and upset. I prayed and prayed because my house got broken into. This is just a beautiful time for us.' The first American Pope in history (pictured on the balcony of St Peter's Basilica at the Vatican) lived in the house for two decades with his father Louis, a teacher, and librarian mother Mildred and two brothers. It is believed the family sold the home after the death of the Pope's parents Estate agent Steve Budzik said the home's owner, who wishes to remain anonymous, was at a doctor's appointment with his pregnant wife when the Pope's appointment was announced. Mr Budzik said: 'He was like, 'This is great. This is better than winning a lotto ticket'. 'I say one in a million [chance of this happening] but it's more in the billions. You'd have a better chance of winning the lotto.' The owner, an electrician, purchased the property in May 2024 for $66,000 (£50,000) and carried out extensive renovations. An earlier buyer had made a $219,000 (£165,000) offer in April but backed out. One neighbour said the price of the home 'will skyrocket': 'It must be worth at least double now, if not more,' she said. 'Hopefully this will be good for all of us. This isn't a great area so we needed this.'
The Sun
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Pope Leo played being a priest as a child with ironing board as altar & cookies as communion wafers, brother reveals
POPE LEO XIV played at being a priest as a child and used the family's ironing board as an altar, his brother has revealed. Robert Prevost — as he was known before he became the first American-born pontiff this week — also handed out biscuits as communion wafers. 4 4 His brother John, 71, who still lives in their native Chicago, said: 'He wanted to play priest so he put a tablecloth over our mom's ironing board and we had to go to mass.' He said young Robert also used an American biscuit called Necco Wafers, adding: 'These were the communion wafers. It was all taken very seriously, it was not a joke.' Pope Leo, 69, the 267th pontiff, was one of three sons born to librarian Mildred and school principal Louis. He studied maths at Villanova University in Philadelphia, then returned to Chicago to train as a priest. But John told how his brother's calling started at a much younger age. He told US TV show Good Morning America: 'From the time he was five or six years old he knew this was his fate — not that he would be Pope, but that he would be a priest. 'He had that from a very young age, and he never faltered.' His eldest brother Louis, who now lives in Florida, added: 'We used to tease him all the time, 'You're going to be the Pope one day'. 'We knew something was special about him.' Very emotional While maintaining his American roots — he supports the Chicago White Sox baseball team and is said to love deep-dish pizza — the then Robert made a life in the Peruvian city of Chiclayo, where he served as bishop from 2015 to 2023. He also became a Peruvian citizen, and Catholic writer Austen Ivereigh said of his elevation to the papacy: 'That is the genius of this election — both the US and South America can claim him.' And the new Pope's goddaughter, Peruvian influencer Mildred Camacho Dioses — who was named after his mother — said her family 'jumped for joy' when this week's news broke. She said: 'He's an excellent person and I still can't believe he's now the Pope. It's made me very emotional to know that he's the representative of God on Earth.' Speaking from her family home in Chulucanas, near Peru's border with Ecuador, Mildred added: 'When I heard the name Robert Prevost I rang my parents and my aunts and uncles. 'It's something we're still processing, because we can't believe it. He has always been present in my life, writing to me and sending me greetings on my birthday and other important dates. 'I last saw him last August, when he came to Chulucanas and he met my daughters. 'He gave them his blessing, and blessed my home and sent greetings to my grandparents who he also has a close relationship with.' Asked if she had a message for the new Pope, Mildred said: 'Godfather, we're all so happy and so proud.' 4 4 The previous pope to take the name Leo, Pope Leo XIII, was an Italian whose baptismal name was Vincenzo Gioacchino Pecci. He was elected in 1878 and led the Catholic Church until he died in 1903. He is remembered for his dedication to social justice. The first Pope Leo — known as St Leo the Great — led the church between 440 and 461AD, and was known for his commitment to peace. While the new Pope Leo has yet to say why he chose the name, it has been suggested that the deep commitment to social issues that the name represents is in line with his beliefs. Notably, his first words as pope were: 'Peace be with you'. And Edinson Edgardo Farfan Cordova, the current bishop of Chiclayo, where Pope Leo used to live and work, called him a 'shepherd among people'. He said: 'I am convinced Pope Leo XIV will continue the line of communion and closeness to the poor that marked the pontificate of Francis.' It has also been revealed that the new pope watched the film Conclave before taking part in the real thing so he 'knew how to behave'. The award-winning Ralph Fiennes movie follows a cardinal organising the conclave who investigates secrets and scandals about the candidates. John said he had asked his brother if he had watched the film to 'laugh about something because this is now an awesome responsibility'. Of his brother's new role leading the 1.4billion-strong Catholic Church, he added: 'We are so proud.' LEO IS A MAN OF HIS WORDLE WHILE Pope Leo XIV leads the 1.4bn-strong Catholic Church, he has interests and hobbies just like us. We reveal ten fascinating facts. He is a fan of the Chicago White Sox baseball team The pontiff is a keen amateur tennis player He plays the web-based word game Wordle A keen horseman, he rode in the mountains of Peru as a missionary Colleague Father Joseph Farrell revealed Leo supports football club AS Roma Leo earned a maths degree from Villanova University in 1977 He can speak seven languages – English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Latin and German. He watched the award-winning Hollywood movie Conclave He plays a Scrabble-like online game called Words With Friends He likes deep-dish pizza
New York Times
10-05-2025
- General
- New York Times
Pope's Childhood in a Changing Chicago Tells a Story of Catholic America
Before he was Pope Leo XIV, or even Father Bob, he was the youngest of the three Prevost boys in the pews at St. Mary of the Assumption Parish on the far edge of Chicago's southern border. The parish was bustling when the future pope and his family were parishioners there in the 1950s and '60s. All three brothers attended elementary school at the parish school. Their mother, Mildred, was the president of the St. Mary Altar and Rosary Society, and performed in plays there, according to Noelle Neis, who remembers sitting behind the family on Sunday mornings. 'They were always there,' Ms. Neis said, adding, 'The community revolved around the church.' Today, the old Catholic enclave on the South Side of Chicago has essentially disappeared, with institutions shuttered and parishioners dispersing into the suburbs. Attendance at St. Mary of the Assumption declined dramatically over the years, and the congregation merged with another dwindling parish in 2011. The combined parish merged with another two churches in 2019. The old St. Mary building has fallen into disrepair, with graffiti scrawled behind the altar. That transformation is in many ways the story of Catholicism in America, as changes in urban and suburban landscapes crashed into demographic and cultural shifts that radically reshaped many Catholic communities. 'It's one of the great dramas of 20th century U.S. history,' said John McGreevy, a historian at the University of Notre Dame and the author of 'Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter With Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North.' Because Catholic dioceses invested so heavily in their physical infrastructure, including church buildings and schools, white Catholics often stayed longer in their neighborhoods than white residents who fled when Black people began to move in the mid-20th century. 'Catholic parishes were neighborhood anchors in ways that no white Protestant or white Jewish institution was,' Dr. McGreevy said. 'When Catholics of a certain generation were asked, 'Where are you from?' They would say, 'I'm from St. Barnabas,' 'I'm from Holy Name.'' Even in many changing Catholic neighborhoods, white residents eventually moved out. But in the booming days of postwar Chicago, Catholic families like the Prevosts clustered together, attending the same parishes, schools and social events. 'The South Side of Chicago, especially back then, was very family-oriented, very Catholic,' said the Rev. Tom McCarthy, who first met Pope Leo in Chicago in the 1980s. Father McCarthy, who grew up in the Marquette Park neighborhood on the South Side, said it was unusual not to be Catholic in the area where the pope grew up. 'I only knew one family who wasn't Catholic,' he said. 'You went to Catholic schools, you stayed in the neighborhood, you worked hard, and I think he's a product of that.' Pope Leo XIV, of course, did not stay in the neighborhood. He enrolled at St. Augustine Seminary High School near Holland, Mich., a boarding school for boys. And as he ascended through the Catholic hierarchy, he lived abroad for long stretches, in Peru and Italy. Chicago's South Side was solidly working class during Pope Leo's childhood, said Rob Paral, a researcher at the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois Chicago. The family attended a South Side church, but they lived in Dolton, a suburb just past the city line. 'It is so far away from the privileged suburbs of the north and west Chicago area,' Mr. Paral said. 'He is really from the grit and the real Chicago, which these days is exemplified as much by the southern suburbs as it is by anything in the city.' The area can be described partly by what it is not, Mr. Paral said. 'It's not pretty, not leafy,' he said. 'You're talking about highways and industry and railroad tracks.' Donna Sagna, 50, has lived next door to the pope's childhood home for about eight years, she said, during a period that has sometimes been troubled for the block. She said she had seen drugs being sold near the pope's former house. People moved frequently, Ms. Sagna said, often to escape the violence and crime in the neighborhood. She said she knew of no one who still lived on the block since the Prevost family days. The neighborhood has felt calmer in recent years, she said, and she is thrilled to be living next door to a house with a suddenly notable history. 'I'm hoping this will bring some peace to the community,' Ms. Sagna said. The pope's childhood parish, St. Mary of the Assumption, had grown rapidly in the decades before Leo was born, outgrowing two buildings and moving into a third that opened in 1957, when the future pope was a toddler. The church remained busy and active through the following decades, according to interviews and church records. But the building had structural problems, and attendance started to decline. In 2011, the archbishop of Chicago at the time, Cardinal Francis George, wrote that the building 'is in such a state of poor repair that it is not safe to use.' He combined St. Mary of the Assumption with a nearby parish and ordered the building closed because the area 'is so economically depressed and the Catholic population in the area is so small that there are insufficient resources to repair the church.' Many of the Catholic institutions that the Prevost family was connected to met similar fates. Mendel Catholic High School, where the pope's mother worked as a librarian and his brothers went to high school, closed in 1988. The elementary school in the South suburb of Chicago Heights where his father served as principal shuttered two years later. The number of parishes in the Archdiocese of Chicago declined to 216 by 2024, from 445 in the mid-1970s. In Dolton, 94 percent of residents were white and 2 percent were Black in 1980. By the 2010 census, 5 percent of Dolton residents were white and 90 percent were Black. Pope Leo's mother died in 1990. His father, Louis, sold the family home in Dolton in 1996 after almost 50 years, according to county records. He died the next year. The pope's childhood home, a modest brick house on a well-kept block in Dolton, sold last year for $66,000, according to property records. It was recently refurbished and listed against for $199,000. (This week, the real estate broker managing the sale pulled it off the market to consider raising the price.) Marie Nowling, 86, who lives four houses away, described the neighborhood as quiet. She moved into her house in 1999. 'When I moved here it was wild, a lot of gangs,' Ms. Nowling said. 'But it's a quiet, nice neighborhood now.'
The Herald
10-05-2025
- General
- The Herald
Six things to know about Pope Leo XIV
This was soon after his election by the 133 cardinal electors in the Sistine Chapel, when white smoke rose to signal to the world that a new pope had been chosen. About 70 minutes later Pope Leo XIV appeared on the central balcony of St Peter's Basilica dressed in white and flanked by cardinals. 3. His family history reflects deep roots in faith and service Prevost was born into a devout family in Chicago's South Side. He is the son of Louis and Mildred Prevost and one of three brothers. His mother was of Spanish descent and worked as a librarian. She came from a religious family with two sisters who became nuns. His father, who had French and Spanish roots, was a navy veteran of World War 2 and a lifelong educator. Both parents are deceased. 4. He has a rich international ministry and dual citizenship While born in the US, Pope Leo XIV holds dual citizenship with Peru. He joined the Augustinian mission in Peru in 1985 and spent much of his early ministry there, serving as a seminary director and canon law professor. He also served in leadership roles that emphasised community outreach and education in poor and underserved areas. After returning briefly to the US, he was called back to Peru in 2014 by Pope Francis who appointed him apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Chiclayo, eventually naming him bishop. In 2015 he was granted Peruvian citizenship, highlighting his strong ties to Latin America, a region that now represents a significant share of the world's catholics. He is fluent in English and Spanish. 5. He's a highly educated scholar Pope Leo XIV has a rich academic and theological background. He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Villanova University in 1977 followed by a master of divinity from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago in 1982 and was ordained a priest the same year.
