SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
By Obed Lamy and Hallie Golden
New Lenox, Illinois: When white smoke poured out of the Sistine Chapel, revealing that a new Pope had been chosen, John Prevost turned on his television in Illinois, called his niece, and they watched in awe as his brother’s name was announced.
“She started screaming because it was her uncle, and I was in the moment of disbelief that this cannot be possible because it’s too far from what we thought would happen,” Prevost said from his home in New Lenox, Illinois.
John Prevost says his brother initially thought there was “no way” he would become Pope.Credit: John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune, via Associated Press
Only days earlier, The New York Times reported that a priest had told John the odds were good that his brother would become Pope, but he had dismissed it.
But in wake of the news, he said he felt an intense sense of pride that his brother, Cardinal Robert Prevost, had become the 267th pontiff to lead the Catholic Church, making the Chicago-born missionary the first pope from the United States.
“It’s quite an honour; it’s quite a once-in-a-lifetime,” he said. “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.”
Robert Prevost, a 69-year-old member of the Augustinian religious order who spent his career ministering in Peru, took the name Leo XIV.
New Pope Leo XIV appears on the central loggia of St Peter’s Basilica.Credit: AP
John Prevost described his brother as being very concerned for the poor and those who don’t have a voice. He said he expected him 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 added. “Kind of right down the middle.”
At one point during the interview, John Prevost realised he had missed several calls from his brother, so he gave the new Pope a call back.
Leo told him he wasn’t interested in being part of the interview, and after a brief message of congratulations and discussion in which they talked like any two brothers about travel arrangements, they hung up.
The new Pope grew up the youngest of three boys. John Prevost, who was only a year older, said he remembers Robert Prevost being very good in school as a child and enjoying playing tag, Monopoly and Risk.
From a young age, he said he knew his brother was going to be a priest. Although he didn’t expect him to become Pope, he recalled a neighbour predicting that very thing when Robert Prevost was in only year 1.
“She sensed that at six years old,” he said. “How she did that, who knows. It took this long, but here he is: first American Pope.”
When Robert Prevost graduated from year 8, he left for seminary school, his brother said.
“There’s a whole period there where we didn’t really grow up together,” he said. “It was just on vacations that we had contact together.”
These days, the brothers talk on the phone every day, John Prevost said. Robert Prevost will call him, and they will discuss everything from politics to religion and even play the day’s Wordle.
John Prevost said he’s not sure how much time his brother will have to talk as the new Pope and how they’ll handle staying in touch in the future.
“It’s already strange not having someone to talk to,” he said.
The brothers’ parents died nine years ago, and John said they would have been delighted at the news their youngest son had become the Pope. “They would be on cloud nine,” he said, according to The New York Times. “Absolutely incredible. You couldn’t even dream this.”
AP
