Despite the pronouncements of veteran Vatican-watchers, the rash of profiles and the raking over of old statements, very few people seem to know exactly where Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost – now known as Pope Leo XIV – stands on the big issues of the day.
But one person who has a better idea than most is the new pontiff’s elder brother John Prevost.
In a recent interview with the New York Times (NYT), the 71-year-old retired teacher noted his brother’s emotional and ideological proximity to his friend Pope Francis and said he shared Leo predecessor’s concerns about the US’s immigration policy.
Prevost described his brother as middle-of-the-road, adding: “I don’t think we’ll see extremes either way.” He also said the new pope would not hesitate to speak out against injustices. “I don’t think he’ll stay quiet for too long if he has something to say.
“I know he’s not happy with what’s going on with immigration. I know that for a fact. How far he’ll go with it is only one’s guess, but he won’t just sit back. I don’t think he’ll be the silent one.”
Francis made no secret of his opposition to Donald Trump’s border and mass deportations plans, and also took issue with the US vice-president, JD Vance’s interpretation of the church’s teaching on our responsibilities to others.
During a visit to Mexico in February 2016, Francis criticised Trump’s plan for a border wall between the US and its southern neighbour.
“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian,” he said. “This is not the gospel.”
Although his intervention angered Trump – who said it was disgraceful for a religious leader to question someone’s faith – Francis refused to hold his tongue.
In a letter to Catholic bishops in the US three months ago, the late pope described Trump’s mass deportations as a major crisis that was damaging “the dignity of many men and women”.
Francis also sought to correct claims by Vance that the US government’s actions were justified by a concept from medieval Catholic theology known as ordo amoris, or rightly ordered love. Vance had invoked the concept to suggest there was a clear hierarchy of care and that compassion should be focused on one’s community and fellow citizens before it was extended to the rest of the world.
“Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,” the pope said in his letter to the bishops. “The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the Good Samaritan, that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”
Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, acknowledged the pontiff’s criticism, but said he would continue to defend his views. During an appearance at the national Catholic prayer breakfast in Washington DC in February, he called himself a “baby Catholic” and acknowledged there were “things about the faith that I don’t know”.
Hours after Prevost was elected pope, many seized on posts from an X account apparently belonging to the cardinal that criticised Trump and Vance’s positions. One post shared an article from the National Catholic Reporter, headlined “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others”. Another reposted a report on California Catholic bishops complaining that Trump’s use of the phrase “bad hombres” to describe some Mexicans fuelled “racism and nativism”.
Trump was among the first world leaders to hail Pope Leo’s appointment. “It is such an honor to realize that he is the first American,” he wrote on Truth Social. “What excitement, and what a Great Honor for our Country. I look forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV. It will be a very meaningful moment!”
Some of the US president’s supporters, however, were less thrilled by the news.
The far-right political influencer Laura Loomer wrote on X: “He is anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, pro-open Borders, and a total Marxist like Pope Francis. Catholics don’t have anything good to look forward to. Just another Marxist puppet in the Vatican.”
Last week Steve Bannon, one of Trump’s most outspoken Catholic allies, highlighted Prevost’s ideological closeness to Francis, noting that he was one of the most progressive candidates and “one of the dark horses” of the conclave.
The Maga faithful will have found little comfort in John Prevost’s effort to sum up his brother and his stances.
“The best way I could describe him right now is that he will be following in Francis’s footsteps,” he told the NYT. “They were very good friends. They knew each other before he was pope, before my brother even was bishop.”
