In a surprising turn of events, the conclave of cardinals chose Cardinal Robert Prevost, a Chicago native, to become the 267th pope and the first American to hold the position. Prevost, who took the name Pope Leo XIV, had an unusual way of preparing for the conclave: he watched the 2024 thriller movie “Conclave,” which dramatizes the Vatican’s selection process.
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According to John Prevost, the new pope’s older brother, the two spoke a day before the conclave began. “I said: ‘Are you ready for this?
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Did you watch the movie, so you know how to behave?’ And he had just finished watching the movie,” John laughed.
“So he knew how to behave,” John added, saying that he wanted to take his brother’s mind off the real conclave and laugh about something, given the awesome responsibility he was about to undertake. Despite his American roots, Pope Leo XIV was not considered a frontrunner for the papacy. He had only been named a cardinal two years prior, and no American had ever been chosen to lead the Catholic Church.
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John Prevost said that neither he nor his brother believed it would happen, given the attitude that there would never be an American pope. However, based on what he had been reading and hearing, John thought his brother was in serious contention.
First American pope selected
“I was reading and hearing that there were three outstanding candidates that were in first, second, and third place,” he said. “The cardinal from the Philippines, the [Vatican] secretary of state, and he [Robert].”
After a relatively short conclave, which ended on Thursday evening after a day and four rounds of voting, Pope Leo XIV assumed the role vacated by Pope Francis. He addressed the crowd gathered in St.
Peter’s Square in Spanish and Italian, reflecting his considerable time spent in South America and his status as a naturalized citizen of the region. Pope Leo XIV will have little time for movies as the new leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. However, his brother provided some insight into how he likes to unwind from serious responsibilities.
“First, we do Wordle, because this is a regular thing, OK,” John said. “We do Words with Friends. It keeps his mind off life in the real world.”
The Prevost family expressed their pride and amazement at the news that one of their own had become the first American pope in history. “It’s totally unreal, it’s totally surreal,” John said. “It’s a tremendous thing to take in, but it’s something to be very proud of.”
