Pope's brother says even as a baby, future pontiff had a spiritual 'air' about him

CHICAGO (OSV News) -- Much has been reported about Pope Leo XIV's earliest days of playing priest at the family's home in Dolton, a suburb south of Chicago.

But his eldest brother, Louis Prevost, said, in hindsight, something his brothers teased the young Robert F. Prevost about was a clear indication of just how "blessed" the first pope from the United States was, even from babyhood.

"If I was more cognizant at the time and paid closer attention when he was a newborn in the crib maybe he had a halo around his head," joked Louis Prevost, who was 4 when Robert was born. "But (seriously) from a very early age when he was up and walking around and started talking and just continuing to develop, he was different."

Louis is the eldest of the three Prevost brothers. The middle brother, John, 71, is a retired educator who lives in New Lenox, Illinois.

In an interview with OSV News, Louis Prevost said that it was more than just Robert being "the baby of the family. … There was an air about him. I mean the spirit coming out of his physical body as he grew older."

Louis Prevost described that once his baby brother Rob was old enough and had "stronger comprehension," he started to celebrate pretend Mass. He recalled his brother taking out the ironing board to set up an altar and the boys' mother giving him a white sheet to cover it with, and also a little cup to use as a chalice. The homemade toy Mass kit was complete with Necco wafers, chalky fruit, clove and licorice flavored candy discs the size of a thin quarter.

"He would use those as hosts to give 'Communion' to us, as we'd go to his little pretend Mass. At the time, to me, it was like, 'This is dumb.' But looking back on it, 'OK, now I understand, he's pope now. He had this calling,'" exclaimed Louis Prevost.

At 13, Robert Prevost entered the Augustinian order at its minor seminary in Holland, Michigan, which began his theological studies that continued through undergrad at the Augustinian-run Villanova University near Philadelphia, where he graduated in 1977. The same year he entered the novitiate of the Order of Saint Augustine, made his first profession in 1978, took solemn vows two years later and was ordained a priest June 19, 1982.

He went to Catholic Theological Union in Chicago for graduate studies in theology, then it was on to a canon law licentiate and doctorate at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, also called the Angelicum, in Rome. He steadily moved up the ranks of the Augustinian order while on mission in Peru's deeply impoverished northeastern mountains.

It is a calling that has touched lives, especially now that his youngest brother has become Pope Leo XIV, said Louis Prevost, 73.

"Even our non-Catholic friends and neighbors, they're enthralled, they're like, 'I may not be Catholic, but ask your brother to pray for me and bless us,'" he said. "Of course, he's always been open to that."

Louis Prevost told OSV News about a close Navy friend who recently died from an aggressive form of cancer. He lived down the street from Louis and his wife in their southwest Florida neighborhood. The friend, Tom, and his mother were Catholic, but his wife was not. Yet, according to Louis Prevost, both mother-in-law and daughter-in-law might have guessed from his last name that he had a brother who was a cardinal in Rome, and asked him if Cardinal Prevost could pray for Tom.

When he relayed the request to his brother, who was made cardinal in September 2023, Cardinal Prevost said, "Of course."

Very soon after Tom died, Louis Prevost explained, his wife asked to speak to the cardinal on the phone.

Louis Prevost said he was relieved his brother, who had a tight schedule as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, picked up the call to Rome.

"She's talking to the cardinal. For the 15-20 minutes they were on the phone, whatever he said to her, she was in a better place after they hung up. And I said, 'Thank you, glad you were able to help her,'" he said.

Louis Prevost said in his own family, his brother and mother-in-law who was not Catholic had a number of conversations. His wife, Deborah, also not a Catholic -- "yet," he said two days after Pope Leo XIV, 69, was elected -- described her mother as "very anti-Catholic for more than 80 years." She said she was a Protestant missionary.

"She referred to me, when I was dating Lou, as going to the dark side," said Deborah.

When his mother-in-law was ailing in her later years, the couple told OSV News they moved her to their Chicago-area home from an independent senior living facility on the West Coast in the early 2000s. That was where then-Father Prevost, provincial of his order's Midwest province and then overall prior general, visited her.

Louis Prevost said, "And in the few years that she came to know Rob and interact (with him), they had some discussions, faith discussions. Let's put it this way, on her deathbed, she called for Rob to come and be with her."

Louis Prevost called it a miracle and said it surprised him.

"That's the kind of influence he had. It's just incredible. When I say he's blessed, he's got a gift. That's real life right there in front of our eyes. I was flabbergasted," he said.