Pope Leo’s brother has shared what the new pope enjoys doing in his free time — and it’s something no one saw coming.
Following the death of Pope Francis, who passed away aged 88 on Easter Monday, a new pope was chosen by the conclave on Thursday.
The conclave elected 69-year-old Robert Francis Prevost – who will now be known as Pope Leo XIV – a prominent American Catholic leader, was born in Chicago, Illinois, on September 14, 1955.
He is the first US-born pope and the 267th pope.
While he will step into even greater responsibilities as the new head of the Catholic church, one might wonder what he does in his downtime to relax?
Well, according to his brother, John Prevost, the new pontiff’s hobbies aren’t that different from anyone else’s.
The retired Catholic school principal revealed to NBC News: ” First we do Wordle, because this is a regular thing OK, then we do Words With Friends. It’s something to keep his mind off life in the real world.
“And then we talked about what’s going on and I said, ‘Well, do you have your red socks?’ That doesn’t go over well all the time.
“And I said, ‘Well, are you ready for this? Did you watch the movie Conclave so you know how to behave?’ And he had just finished watching the movie Conclave. So he knew how to behave.”
He added: “So it’s that kind of stuff because I wanted to take his mind off of it. You know, laugh about something because this is now an awesome responsibility.”
People have been left gobsmacked at how mundane the pope’s off-hours are, and that he has a family at all.
They took to Reddit to write: “I may sound really dumb but this video made me realize that the Pope has family… Idk I just always thought of the Pope as one singular being in his lifeline lol. Okay my confession is over. Off to do my penance.”
Others added: “I literally can’t wrap my mind around the Pope being American. He went to Villanova! He plays Wordle! I saw a tweet that was like, ‘the Pope has probably been to Walmart.’” and: “The Pope seems like just a regular guy. That’s kind of wild. It’s so cool though!”
One commented: “Side note, can you imagine what the internal chats at Wordle and Words with Friends must be like after seeing this interview?”
Some joked: “wonder what’s his wordle streak,” and: “The new Pope has seen Best Picture nominee Conclave, this is incredible.”
Pope Leo’s brother also revealed that they had a pretty normal childhood until the future pontiff joined the seminary “right out of eighth grade”, but added that he love to get “behind the wheel” as a teenager when he was home for summer vacation.
John also revealed to CBS Chicago that his younger brother was destined to become pope as he often played a priest as a child.
The Prevost family also revealed that they found out the life-changing news at the same time as the rest of the world – when the decision was broadcast on television.
John revealed: “[My niece] screamed and I was sort of, ‘Oh my gosh, this is for real. Is this happening?’”
Summarizing how he felt in the moment, he added: “Shock. Disbelief. A whole lot of pride. A whole lot of, ‘is this for real? Now what are we gonna do?’ That kind of stuff, because this is an awesome responsibility that we have to live up to, that he has to live up to.
“People are going to be watching him from now on closer than ever and maybe us too, the family.”
He alo revealed that he believes his brother will follow in the footsteps of Pope Francis, who also had a passion for helping the poor, underprivileged, and disenfranchized.
