Cardinal Robert Prevost, a missionary born in Chicago who spent much of his career abroad and leads the Vatican’s powerful office of bishops, was elected the first pope from the United States in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church.
Prevost, 69, took the name Leo XIV. He replaces Pope Francis, who died last month.
His first words as the 267th pope were, “Peace be with you.”
From St. Peter’s Basilica, the new pope told the gathered throng that he is an Augustinian priest but a Christian above all, as well as a bishop, “So we can all walk together.”
He spoke in Italian and then switched to Spanish, recalling his many years spent as a missionary and then archbishop of Chiclayo, Peru. Prevost wore the traditional red cape of the papacy — a cape that Francis had eschewed on his election in 2013.
Robert Prevost was born and raised in the Chicago area. He’s taken the name Leo XIV.
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Grew up in Dolton
“I’m really proud,” said Noelle Neis, a childhood friend who, with her four siblings, grew up in the same parish as the Prevosts, the old St. Mary of the Assumption on Chicago’s border with Dolton.
She said her phone was blowing up Thursday with calls and texts.
“To think about we knew him when he was a kid,” Neis said. “He’s just like one of us. Before it was so out of reach for anybody.”
John Doughney, another childhood friend, recalled Prevost as incredibly kind.
“You could tell at a very young age, there was just a kindness and a compassion about him that wasn’t really typical of most kids.” Doughney said. “With Robert, it was on display.”
Prevost’s rise to become an influential figure at the Vatican began in Dolton as the town grew, taking in thousands of people moving from apartments in Chicago to new homes in the south suburb during the post-World War II boom.
Catholics moving there typically landed at the St. Mary of the Assumption parish on the far southern edge of Chicago, straddling the line with Dolton. That’s where the Prevost family — Louis, an educator, Mildred, a librarian, and their sons Louis, John and Robert — were known as dedicated and devout musicians, altar boys, lectors and volunteers.
Sadly, Neis said, St. Mary’s closed as the neighborhoods around it changed and there were fewer Catholics.
“Although my siblings said, ‘We should build a shrine now.’ Maybe the church would be resurrected by the diocese. That would be something.”
Robert Francis “Bob” Prevost, like his older brothers, was born at Mercy Hospital at 25th Street and Prairie Avenue on the South Side.
His parents had been living in a 1,200-square-foot brick house on East 141st Place in Dolton. They bought it new in 1949, paying a $42 monthly mortgage.
His father Louis Prevost was superintendent of the south suburban schools in District 169. News clippings from 1945 show he served as a Navy lieutenant in the Mediterranean in WWII. He had graduated from the old Central Y.M.C.A. College in 1943 while living in Hyde Park.
The new pope’s mother, Mildred Martinez Prevost, studied library science at DePaul University. Her death notice, in 1990, said she and her husband started the St. Mary’s library in the basement of the old school building and mentions jobs she had in the libraries at Holy Name Cathedral, Von Steuben High School on the North Side and at Mendel from 1969 to 1975.
The Sun-Times reported earlier this month that St. Mary’s parishioners remember her as the sweet “Millie,” one of those ladies who keeps a Catholic parish running, a constant presence at the school. She was in the Altar and Rosary Society, at one point its president. With a memorable voice, she sang in the church’s choirs.
Like St. Mary’s, the Catholic institutions that helped shape the future pope are long gone, closed over the decades as the Catholic population around where he grew up and elsewhere plummeted. Among those bygone institutions:
- Mendel College Prep High School, where Prevost and his mother worked.
- St. Augustine Seminary High School in Michigan.
- Tolentine College in Olympia Fields, the suburb where he briefly lived.
- Mount Carmel Elementary School in Chicago Heights, where his father was principal.
Prevost’s career in the church
An American pope was considered a long shot. In fact, Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, said last month that the next pope would not be from the United States.
The new pope was formerly the prior general, or leader, of the Order of St. Augustine, formed in the 13th century as a community of “mendicant” friars dedicated to poverty, service and evangelization.
The order’s requirements and ethos are traced to the fifth century St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the theological and devotional giants of early Christianity.
The order works in about 50 countries, promoting a contemplative spirituality, communal living and service to others.
Kurt Martens, who teaches at The Catholic University of America in Washington, said Prevost’s choice of the name of Leo XIV, referencing XIII and his foundational letter to bishops on social teaching — suggests continuity with the church’s direction under Pope Francis.
Martens said references in Leo XIV’s speech to embracing the whole world was among more signs that the new pope will continue to focus on the poor and those on the margins of societies.
Having been brought to the Vatican by Francis in 2023 to head the office that vets bishop nominations from around the world, one of the most important jobs in the church, Prevost had entered the conclave with far more prominence than most of the other members of the College of Cardinals who were eligible to vote.
Prevost was elected in two days, after just four ballot voting sessions of the eligible members of the College of Cardinals.
Pope Francis also was elected in two days, though after five voting sessions. Francis’ immediate predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, made it after four sessions over two days, and John Paul II required eight ballots over three days.
The cardinals had no contact with the outside world, and their votes will not be revealed.