As Pope Leo XIV neared his 70th birthday Sept. 14, those closest to the American-born pontiff said they knew, very early on, that he was in for lifelong service to the Church.

There was not one specific instance when as a child Robert Francis Prevost, who was born in Chicago and raised in its south suburbs, decided to become a priest, according to his brother John.

"From the youngest age, he (just) knew that that's what he was going to do. It wasn't that there was ever a doubt in anyone's mind. Even going to kindergarten he knew that he was going to be a priest," John Prevost said.

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Prevost said he remembered his youngest brother was five or six years old when he first started playing priest and offering pretend Masses. Young Robert Prevost used an ironing board covered with a white sheet as an altar, a plastic cup for a chalice and gave out Necco candy wafer discs for pretend Communion.

"It was that early, I think ... and then there was never a doubt that's what he was going to do," said Prevost, 71. "It was a true vocation, I guess."

In early July, Pope Leo told about 600 children, including 300 from Ukraine, at a summer camp in Italy that he was an altar boy from the age of about six, serving the 6:30 a.m. Mass — on Fridays, according to his brother — at the family's home parish church, St. Mary of the Assumption, in suburban Dolton, Illinois.

"So even serving at Mass was something we really loved," the Pope told the youngsters. "Because even as a child, I was taught that Jesus is always close, that our best friend is always Jesus and that the Mass was a way to find, let's say, this friend — to be with Jesus — even before receiving first Communion."

He recounted serving at first in Latin and then later in English (with changes instituted following the Second Vatican Council to celebrate Mass in the vernacular).

"Still, what mattered wasn't so much the language of the celebration but really the experience of meeting other kids who also served at Mass together — that sense of friendship — and above all, being close to Jesus in the church," he said.

Being an altar server has remained a pivotal influence for vocations to the priesthood prior to entering seminary, according to the report on the 2024 ordination class from the Washington-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. The latest survey includes data from 2006 through 2024 showing an average of 73 per cent were first altar servers in that period.

Another significant statistic in the report was that in the 2024 ordination class, 82 per cent had both parents who were Catholic. Prevost, who talks to the Pope daily, said he thought the influence on Pope Leo's faith life "had to be (from) both parents." Also, he said, two aunts — his mother's siblings — were religious sisters, and clergy were close friends of the family.

"We went on several vacations with various priests. So he was around priests, not only at church or at school, but also at home when they would, for example, come to dinner or travel when they went on vacation. It was a constant thing," explained Prevost, a retired Catholic school principal.

The three Prevost brothers grew up in a deeply Catholic home on the edge of Chicago, where the Rosary was said every night before dinner and fish was served every Friday (being a day to abstain from meat). The boys' mother, Mildred, worked at their parish helping set up the school library and was later librarian at the Augustinian Mendel Catholic High School, where the Pope's older brothers graduated. Their father, Louis Marius Prevost, a retired Navy man and suburban public school superintendent, also worked for the Chicago archdiocese's schools after he retired from the suburban school system.

As for picking a religious order, Prevost said that when the future Pope was in eighth grade, following several home visits from various orders' vocation directors and also a diocesan visit, he chose the Order of St. Augustine. Prevost said he didn't know what exactly drew his brother to the Augustinians.

Augustinian spirituality is deeply rooted in unity, truth and love. The men's branch of the order, known as "men of heart," has a strong emphasis on community and service to the Church and to others.

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The 13-year old then went off to the Augustinians' minor seminary in Holland, Michigan, where he made some lifelong friends whom he would go to college with and be ordained with.

"Six-hundred-fifty acres of land, one mile of beach, a beautiful facility," said Augustinian Father Bill Lego, describing the school. He was one of only five in the Pope's Holland seminary class of 60 who went on to become a priest. "So we lived away for high school. They gave us ... lower tuition and the education was great."

Lego is pastor at St. Turibius Parish on Chicago's southwest side where most of the Midwest Augustinians serve. He called his high school years "a good formation" in the faith.

He said schooling at Augustinian-run Villanova University followed, where Pope Leo majored in mathematics, and it was after college, during "a very special year" in novitiate in St. Louis that religious life became solidified for them.

"We kept journals, and we had a spiritual companion that we would talk to during the year. And we'd have classes on Augustine, and we would talk about the faith," he said, adding, "It was a very, very good year."

Lego, 70, said there was a silent retreat that year for the novices to discern whether they would take the next steps of professing temporary vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. He said the future Pope told him he had a profound experience and he himself also had one. Lego then described walking the grounds of a nearby cemetery for deceased religious sisters during their retreat.

"You read the headstones. Sr. Mary Grace: God gave 70 years of vocation. I'm thinking, I can't figure out if I want one. Here's somebody in the ground with 70 (years) going forward. I can't decide on one, you know. I'm like 'Lord, you better do something.’ ” 

At that time he asked his friend "Bob" Prevost if he was taking any of those silent walks. But the future Pope said he developed a blister from walking and "so he took that as the way God moved through him in his life, to have him be more settled and quiet. And I am sure that experience, as mine was, going through novitiate, is probably what has kept us Augustinians."

The following year, the novices went to Catholic Theological Union in Chicago to finish graduate theology studies. Then, Lego detailed Pope Leo's trajectory within the order as "always destined for leadership."

The Pope became a canon lawyer some years after being ordained in 1982. He was called to work in canon law in the Diocese of Chulucanas in the impoverished mountains of northern Peru, also teaching the subject and theology at the Augustinian seminary there in the late '80s through '90s.

Then returning home, he became superior of the Midwest Augustinians (1999-2001), was then elected prior general for the entire order (2001-2013) based in Rome, while traveling the world. Then in 2014 Pope Francis appointed him administrator, then bishop of Chiclayo, Peru. He became cardinal in 2023 and headed the Dicastery for Bishops until he was elected Pope May 8.

Retired Chulucanas Bishop Daniel Turley, a fellow Midwest Augustinian, who spent 53 years in northern Peru and was the future Pope's superior for part of his time there, said he never had occasion to speak with the Pope about his vocation.

"But knowing him and knowing his journey as an Augustinian, I think he was letting himself be led by the Spirit, by the Lord," said Turley. "And being very open, because so many providential things had happened, that he had no control over. Things were just falling in place. It's like he was being prepared by God to become the Pope."

Pope Leo's brother had similar words.

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"The Holy Spirit is at work here. This is just from beginning to end, in a sense, unbelievable, that this road has gone this way for him. And he's not failed at anything. He's done well with everything he's been given to do," he said.

"And whether he likes it or not, he sits down and gets it done, because there must be times where he says, 'I can't do this,' but then he does it," Prevost said. "I mean, look at him in the films now ... he's having a ball. He's enjoying what he's doing so far."