Rev. Robert Prevost is a Dolton native who is being considered for Pope. | Augustinian Order
Rev. Robert Prevost is a Dolton native who is being considered for Pope. | Augustinian Order
When the Roman Catholic College of Cardinals holds its papal conclave on May 7 to select the new Pope, they’ll consider a man who spent most of his life living in the south suburbs.
Rev. Robert Prevost, 69, was raised in Dolton and also lived in Homewood, New Lenox and Olympia Fields, at Tolentine Center on Governor’s Highway.
Growing up, Prevost lived with his parents, Louis and Millie, and two older brothers at 212 E. 141st Place on the far west side of Dolton, less than a block from the Riverdale border.
Robert Prevost led the Midwest Augustinians
| Newspapers.com/Daily Southtown
He graduated in 1968 from St. Mary's Catholic grammar school, 310 E. 137th Street in Chicago's Riverdale neighborhood, just north of Dolton and Riverdale.
Prevost then moved to Olympia Fields, where lived and studied to be a priest at Tolentine from 1969-73, when the Augustinians ran it as a seminary for young men.
Tolentine seminary closed in June 1973, Prevost’s senior year there.
Prevost would go on to attend Villanova University, graduating and joining the Augustinians in 1977.
He was ordained a priest in Rome and studied there until 1984, shuttling between church leadership positions in Chicago and Peru until 2023.
That’s when Pope Francis recalled Prevost to Rome and put him in charge of selecting new bishops.
Pope Francis then named Prevost as a Cardinal on September 30, 2023, and was elevated to the "Order of Bishops" within the College of Cardinals on Feb 6, becoming one of just 13 with the designation.
As a "Cardinal Bishop," Prevost now holds the most senior rank in the College of Cardinals.
Led the Augustinian Midwest Province, including Providence Catholic H.S.
In 1999, Prevost took over the Midwestern Province of the Order of Saint Augustine.
He oversaw St. Rita of Cascia H.S. in Chicago's Ashburn neighborhood as well as St. Jude parish and Providence Catholic High School in New Lenox, where school president Rev. Richard McGrath reported to Prevost.
McGrath was forced out of his position in 2017, after a Providence student reported seeing a nude image of a boy on his cell phone while he watched a wrestling match. He was later accused of sexual abuse by a former Providence student. The Midwestern Province paid $2 million in 2023 to settle the case.
The son of Louis Manilus Prevost and Mildred Agnes Prevost (nee Martinez), Prevost was born Sept. 14, 1955.
His father was 35, born to two native French parents and raised in Hyde Park. His mother was 43. one of six girls from Chicago's West Side, her parents from Louisiana.
Louis and Millie married on Jan. 25, 1949.
Robert was the youngest of three boys. His older brother, Louis, was born in 1951 and John, in 1954.
Louis Prevost worked as superintendent for Glenwood School District 167 and Mount Carmel Catholic Grammar School in Chicago Heights. Millie was a librarian at now-closed Mendel Catholic H.S. in Roseland, also run by the Augustinians.
Robert Prevost's older brothers, Louis and John, attended Mendel as students.
Public records show John lived in southeast Homewood, at 1341 Birch Road, from 1994-2008, before moving to New Lenox.
Louis Prevost sold his Dolton home for $58,000 in 1996 and moved to a ranch at 18710 Highland Avenue in Homewood's Southgate Subdivision, paying $108,000.
Millie Provost died in 1990; Louis Prevost died on Nov. 8, 1997 in Homewood.
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