Robert Prevost had a question for his brother John on the night before the conclave began to select a new pope.
“He said, ‘What should my name be?’” John Prevost said, according to the Daily Herald.
“We started rattling off names just to rattle off names. I told him it shouldn’t be Leo because it will be the 13th. But he must’ve done some research to see it’s actually the 14th,” he said.
John Prevost said he kept alive in the back of his mind that the man who is now Pope Leo XIV could become the first American pope.
“Not really an idea that it could happen, but there was an inkling of a chance,” he said.
“But I really was just as surprised as everyone when they said his name,” he said.
John, Prevost, 71, who is a retired Catholic school principal, said his brother’s election was a “shocking moment.”
“I was on the phone with my niece and we both couldn’t believe it. Then the phone, the iPad and my cellphone just went nuts,” he said.
John Prevost said that he and his two brothers were raised by their father, a school superintendent, and his mother, a school librarian, in what he called a “normal childhood.”
He said his brother “knew he was going to be a priest from the time he could walk.”
John added, “A neighbor once said he was going to be pope someday. How’s that for a prognostication?”
John Prevost said he spoke to his brother briefly on Thursday to congratulate him, according to ABC News. He said he knows his sibling has his work cut out for him.
“I’m concerned,” John Prevost said.
“It is quite a responsibility that he’s going to face now because he’s got the task of trying to bring the world’s Catholics together. I think we’re splitting apart quickly. Maybe he can do something to bring it back,” he said.
“People are leaving the church. There are factions in the church,” he added. “I think he’s got to face those things and somehow talk about it and bring people together to talk about it, to get worldwide opinion.”
The new pope faces many global issues where his stance will define if he is accepted or rejected.
The Pope was really on the TV during the White Sox World Series in 2005😳 pic.twitter.com/iW40glGNhw
— Six Point Sports (@SixPointSports) May 9, 2025
But for a Chicago native, the most essential of all positions was revealed Thursday, according to WGN-TV.
The new pope “was never, ever a Cubs fan. … He was always a [White] Sox fan,” John Prevost said.