“He knew what his path was going to be” - Pope Leo’s childhood friend opens up about new pontiff

Robert Prevost, now known as Pope Leo XIV all over the world, showed signs of becoming a pious servant of god from a very young age, as per his school mate John Doughney, who recently spoke to People Magazine in an exclusive interview.

Among the many fascinating details about Pope Leo XIV that his schoolmate revealed, Doughney also shared that the pontiff displayed a unique sense of conviction about the course of his own life from his early teens. Doughney told the People Magazine,

“I do believe that he knew what his path was going to be…I don't know that he knew his path would take him to the papacy, but he knew his path was into the Catholic church as a priest and then as a missionary. And very few 13-year-olds are that steadfast in knowing this is the path I'm taking and this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life.”

Doughney, in order to iterate his point further, shared that Prevost, the future Pope, was nicknamed ‘Holy’ when he was in his teens. The nickname was used by his schoolmates, friends and siblings alike.

According to the People Magazine report, Doughney, who now lives in Texas, spent 8 years of his school life with Pope Leo when there were growing up Chicago, in the city’s neighbourhood known as the South Side.

Speaking about the conditions of their part of the city back when they were growing up, particularly the neighbourhood’s influence on the behaviour of young adolescents, Doughney also spoke to the People Magazine about the nuanced uniqueness of personality that the newly elected pontiff displayed as an adolescent. He said,

“there was a constancy of how he was and how he held himself even as a 13-year-old, which is, I mean, that's the unique…He was always kind. Never had saw him have any kind of words with anybody else. And certainly no kind of physical altercations, which was a common occurrence in the south side of Chicago.”

About Pope Leo XIV’s life before being appointed as the pontiff

Robert Prevost was born in 1955 to parents who were educators deeply immersed in religious life, as per the Chicago Tribune. Prevost spent his childhood in the South Side of Chicago with two more siblings, of whom Prevost was the youngest.

His elder brother, John Prevost, spoke to ABC News shortly after his younger brother made history by becoming the first elected North American born Pope in the 2000-year-old history of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State.

Speaking about his younger brother’s religious disposition from his childhood days in Chicago, John Prevost told ABC News,

“Some people play school, some people play army, he played priest, and we had to go to Mass”

Pope Leo’s other sibling, Louis Prevost, also spoke to ABC News. While sharing childhood memories, he said,

“We used to tease him that ‘you are going to be Pope one day’”

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As per new Pope’s biography on Vatican News, Prevost got his formal education in theology from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and at the age of 27 he went to to Rome to study Canon Law at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Born in North America and educated in both the US and Rome, Pope Leo XIV spent two decades serving in many positions of the Catholic order in Peru, including the Bishop of Chiclayo, an appointment which he received from his predecessor, Pope Francis.

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