Cardinal Robert Prevost, a missionary born in Chicago who spent his profession ministering in Peru and leads the Vatican’s highly effective workplace of bishops, was elected the primary American pope within the 2,000-year historical past of the Catholic Church.
Prevost, 69, took the title Leo XIV.
His first phrases as pope have been, “Peace be with you.”
From the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica, the primary American pope instructed the gathered throng that he’s an Augustinian priest however a Christian above all, in addition to a bishop, “So we will all stroll collectively.”
He spoke in Italian after which switched to Spanish, recalling his a few years spent as a missionary after which archbishop of Chiclayo, Peru.
“I’m actually proud,” stated Noelle Neis, a childhood good friend who, together with her 4 siblings, grew up in the identical parish because the Prevosts, the outdated St. Mary of the Assumption on Chicago’s border with Dolton.
She stated her cellphone was blowing up with calls and texts.
“To consider we knew him when he was a child,” Neis stated. “He’s similar to one in every of us. Earlier than it was so out of attain for anyone.”
Prevost’s rise to develop into an influential determine on the Vatican started in Dolton because it grew, taking in hundreds of individuals shifting from residences in Chicago to new houses within the south suburb throughout the post-World Struggle II growth.
Catholics shifting there sometimes landed on the St. Mary of the Assumption on the far southern fringe of Chicago, straddling the road with Dolton. That’s the place the Prevost household — Louis, an educator, Mildred, a librarian, and their sons Louis, John and Robert — have been identified at bustling St. Mary’s as devoted and religious musicians, altar boys, lectors and volunteers.
Sadly, Neis stated, St. Mary’s closed because the neighborhoods round it modified and there have been fewer Catholics.
“Though my siblings stated, ‘We should always construct a shrine now.’ Possibly the church can be resurrected by the diocese. That might be one thing.”
Robert Francis Prevost, like his older brothers, was born at Mercy Hospital at twenty fifth Road and Prairie Avenue on the South Facet.
His mother and father, then 35 and 43, had been residing in a 1,200-square-foot brick home on East 141st Place in Dolton. They purchased it new in 1949, paying a $42 month-to-month mortgage.
His father Louis Prevost was superintendent of the south suburban colleges in District 169. Information clippings from 1945 present he served as a Navy lieutenant within the Mediterranean in WWII. He had graduated from the outdated Central Y.M.C.A. School in 1943 whereas residing in Hyde Park.
The brand new pope’s mom, Mildred Martinez Prevost, studied library science at DePaul College. Her loss of life discover, in 1990, stated she and her husband with beginning the St. Mary’s library within the basement of the old-fashioned constructing and mentions jobs she had within the libraries at Holy Identify Cathedral, Von Steuben Excessive Faculty on the North Facet and at Mendel from 1969 to 1975.
The Solar-Instances reported earlier this month that St. Mary’s parishioners keep in mind her because the candy “Millie,” a kind of girls who retains a Catholic parish operating, a relentless presence on the faculty. She was within the Altar and Rosary Society, at one level its president. With a memorable voice, she sang within the church’s choirs.
Like St. Mary’s, the Catholic establishments that helped form the long run pope are lengthy gone, closed over the many years because the Catholic inhabitants round the place he grew up and elsewhere plummeted. Amongst these bygone establishments:
• Mendel School Prep Excessive Faculty, the place Prevost and his mom labored.
• St. Augustine Seminary Excessive Faculty in Michigan.
• Tolentine School in Olympia Fields, the suburb the place he briefly lived.
• Mount Carmel Elementary Faculty in Chicago Heights, the place his father was principal.
The brand new pope was previously the prior basic, or chief, of the Order of St. Augustine, shaped within the thirteenth century as a neighborhood of “mendicant” friars devoted to poverty, service and evangelization.
The order’s necessities and ethos are traced to the fifth century St. Augustine of Hippo, one of many theological and devotional giants of early Christianity.
The order works in about 50 international locations, selling a contemplative spirituality, communal residing and repair to others.
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