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Pope's pal says if he had to pick a classmate to become pope, he would have guessed "Bob" Prevost

Pope's pal says if he had to pick classmate for pope, he would have guessed 'Bob' Prevost Pope's pal says if he had to pick classmate for pope, he would have guessed 'Bob' Prevost Pope's pal says if he had to pick classmate for pope, he would have guessed 'Bob' Prevost One of Pope Leo XIV's longtime friends said that if he had to guess which person in his class would have grown up to become the pontiff, the man he knew as "Bob" Prevost would have been his number one pick. "This is the pope right here. On one knee and, for what it's worth, that's me directly behind him," said Jim Priestly, showing off a photo from their high school graduation as the St. Augustine Prep Seminary class of 1973. The boarding school was located in Michigan, and is now closed. Prevost and Priestly lived, grew and studied together. "A dormitory with—we didn't' have private rooms, but kind of like an army barracks kind of a thing, with beds next to each other," he said. Looking through their freshman yearbook grants some insight into the 14-year-old pope-to-be. He performed in school plays, and was a studio, smart, caring friend. "Bob was a very good student, very obedient, didn't fool around, wasn't the class clown," Priestly said. "He was a very nice guy everyone got along with him. He was well-organized." The two moved on to Villanova University together, sharing a dorm once again. The new pope, Priestly said, was one of the only students to have a car at the time. "He did like to drive," he recalled. "And when I saw him last summer, he drove from New Lenox to Homewood. I remember asking him, 'Oh, how'd you get here?' He said, 'I drove.' And I'm sure he'll mis driving, because I don't think they let the pope drive a car." We asked if the new pontiff preferred deep dish or tavern style pizza, at least in his high school and college years. "He would be very diplomatic in discussing it if you were to ask him," he said. "He would say probably that he likes both of them. And in the Cubs-Sox thing, he would say, 'Well I'm a Sox fan but I like the Cubs too.' Because he's a bridge builder." Priestly said beyond the memories from his childhood, there's just so much pride knowing that the pope comes from Chicago's south suburbs.