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.”
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.
“How she did that, who knows. It took this long, but here he is, first American pope.”
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.”
“He’s not going to be real far left and he’s not going to be real far right,” he said.
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“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.
“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
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