He says getting in touch with his brother will probably be a lot harder now that he’s, you know, the pope.
PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — Pope Leo XIV was born Robert Francis Prevost in Chicago but has become a global figure and spent most of his career in Peru and Rome.
10 Tampa Bay’s Adaure Achumba spoke to a Port Charlotte man who many might argue knows him best. Lou Prevost is Pope Leo’s older brother had some incredible stories to share.
Lou recalled teasing Pope Leo back when he was just “Rob.”
“He was my stupid little brother,” he said with a laugh, adding that while other kids played cops and robbers, Rob wanted to play priest.
“Can I give you communion?’” he remembered his brother asking him.
Lou says all kidding aside, he’s in awe his brother is now known by billions around the world.
“When we talked to him, he’s like, ‘I don’t really need to do that, but if it’s God’s will, I’ll do it,” Lou said. “I don’t think he’s going to come in and make a lot of changes right off the bat. I think he’s open to where [Pope] Francis was going.”
Lou’s been able to see his brother in Rome as prefect for the Dicastery of Bishops, overseeing the selection of new bishops. In that role, Pope Leo added women to the process for the first time in history.
“He’s gone out [to] some women and said, ‘I want you to help me. Tell me about these guys. What do you think of them?’” Lou said, adding he doesn’t think his brother will allow women to be priests.
Now he doesn’t know when he might get to see his brother next.
“Hey, I’m the pope’s brother. Can I go see him?” he said, imitating what a call to the Vatican might be like. “It’s like we might lose total connection with him.”
But Lou says if he could talk to his brother now, he’d ask him to stop by for a visit as one of his first papal actions.
“Come to Florida first!” Lou joked. “Come say hello because God knows when you’re going to get a chance to come back again.”
He didn’t think it would actually happen for his little brother because he’s under 70 and American. But, as Lou says, Pope Leo XIV has spent the majority of his life in service outside the U.S., so he’s about as far from being an American as an American pope can be.
Lou just hopes God, and his brother, will forgive him for bullying Pope Leo XIV as a child.
“All that teasing we did, all that name-calling, you know, am I going to burn for how I treated the pope when he was growing up?” he wondered aloud. “I’m sure he’ll forgive me. So yeah, he was always special in a religious kind of way.”
