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Prevost may be regarded a centrist but his older brother Lou is a huge Trump supporter! And, Lou doesn’t hide his affection for President Trump. Lou posted this last month on Facebook! Here are a few of Lou’s thoughts.

While the questions have been abbreviated, his answers are included here in full.

Because this is a podcast, I'll provide a summary: Sowell says Robert Francis Prevost was elevated to Pope because he is an able administrator, a voice of calmness, and accumulated a cosmopolitan resume. His elevation to Pope followed another who presided over social activism and moral drift. Sowell says Pope Francis gained applause from secular institutions and the elite of the world, at the cost of shrinking congregations; and, the Cardinal-Electors chose Prevost for preservation rather than change.

VATICAN CITY — Two-and-a-half years ago, Pope Francis was trying to fill a big job. For decades, that position — heading the powerful office that helps vet and select bishops — had gone to consummate Vatican insiders. But Francis had staked his papacy on expanding the boundaries of the Catholic Church. And he had his eye on a surprise contender: an American-born missionary operating in the coastal plains of Peru, some 6,000 miles from Rome.“You know that I am very happy in Peru,” the missionary, then-Bishop Robert Prevost, recalled telling Francis. “But if you ask me to take on a...

“May peace be with you.”That was the first sentence uttered by Pope Leo XIV after he was introduced Thursday as the new leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. From the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, the first American pontiff then reminded the audience that those were also the first words Jesus spoke after His resurrection.“This is the peace of the risen Christ,” the man born Robert Francis Prevost continued, “an unarmed and disarming peace, humble and persevering.”My eyes and heart welled with pride as I listened to his short speech — as a Catholic, yes, but especially as an...

I say "sort of" because as a Church official, he has not promoted one party or the other, and as a former citizen of Illinois with its non-partisan registration, he's not officially Republican or Democrat. And since he has deliberately avoided partisan identification, it would be misleading to simply say he is a Republican. But, accounting for that inherent inaccuracy, he's a Republican. Maybe you've seen that he voted in a Republican primary; I did and initially I didn't think that much of it. But he voted as a Republican in at least the last three primaries that he voted...

"People are going to be thrilled to hear the pope speak in their language with an American accent," [David] Fink [a professor of religion at Furman University] said.

Donald Trump and Pope Leo. How will they get on? Who will win?

Cardinal Robert Prevost has been elected pope and will be known as Pope Leo XIV. The 69-year-old is the first American to become a pontiff and will lead members of the Catholic Church's global community of 1.4bn people. Born in Chicago, he is seen as a reformer and worked for many years as a missionary in Peru before being made an archbishop there. He also has Peruvian nationality and is fondly remembered as a figure who worked with marginalised communities and helped build bridges in the local Church. Why do popes choose different names? One of the first acts of...

For Catholics, the new pope’s disposition toward the Latin Mass will tell us far more about his pontificate than his views on immigration.It didn’t take long after Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, emerged onto the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica on Thursday as the new leader of the Catholic Church for social media commentators on the right to begin decrying him as “Francis 2.0.”This snap judgment was based largely on his social media history of reposting criticisms of President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance on immigration policy, as well as a few reposts of left-wing claptrap...

Make no mistake: a Pope from Chicago terrifies me. But I have cause for some hope, which I will share. Pope Francis was, in the surprisingly well-chosen words of the New York Times, "ostentatiously humble." Fully recognizing the irony of a Catholic critiquing the Pope for lacking humility, I also mean to acknowledge that from that humility it took me a long time to give up on Pope Francis. For the longest while, I tried to learn what I could from him, becoming frustrated only after he made it stunningly care that his flock was not the billion and a...

So the world’s got a new pope. Because Catholicism is the largest Christian denomination in the United States – and perhaps the world – and because Catholics live in almost every nation, and certainly on every continent, the world can claim Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, as “the world’s pope,” as I’ve already heard on the news. From what I can tell, so far, he’s a lot like the old pope, Pope Francis. This is frightening. The new pope is billed in the press as a U.S. American, but he’s legally a citizen of Peru, where he spent...

Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) expressed hope Friday on MSNBC’s “Chris Jansing Reports” that the newly elected pope will speak out against the Trump administration’s mass deportations. Jansing said, “His social media was busy prior to becoming pope and is getting attention. It includes a post he shared just last month from a Catholic commentator who called out Trump and the president of El Salvador for laughing about the deportation of Rodrigo Garcia. And then in February, he also reposted an article from the National Catholic Reporter that was titled JD Vance is wrong, Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our...

The Catholic Church’s new Pope has publicly described migration as a “huge problem” even as he also urges Christians to treat migrants with respect. “It’s a huge problem, and it’s a problem worldwide, not only in this country. There’s got to be a way both to solve the problem, but also treat people with respect,” then-Cardinal Robert Prevost preached in a Catholic Mass, according to an undated video: His comments recognized both the Catholic Church’s universalist and idealist perspective and the practical management problem facing elected secular governments: Both the first [Old Testament] reading and the [New Testament] Gospel make...

SummaryUS Catholic church faces divisions over immigration, climate change and cultural issuesPope Leo faces early pushback from some conservative political leadersSome experts believe Leo could ultimately be a uniting forceMay 9 (Reuters) - As Pope Leo XIV celebrated his first Mass as pontiff at the Sistine Chapel on Friday, he spoke a few words in English. It was a reminder - if anyone needed one - that a baseball fan who hails from Chicago was now leader of the Roman Catholic Church.For American Catholics, the elevation of Robert Prevost to the papacy was a shock, a cause for celebration and...

The first American pope arrives at a time of extraordinary complexity and tension in the church in the United States.The last several months for American Catholics have been a story about the ascent of the Catholic right. In January, a parade of right-wing Catholic power began streaming into President Trump’s remade Washington. Just weeks later came the hospitalization and decline of Pope Francis, who often seemed to stand alone in offering a different vision of global Christian influence.Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic in the new conservative style, was one of the last people to see Pope Francis alive, a...

Why pick the first American Pope now? Robert Prevost was made Pope Leo XIV as a counterweight to President Trump. There’s been little ambiguity about the new pope’s politics and less about the overall agenda. Pope Francis had all but rigged the process to assure another radical successor.

12:10 PM EST

White smoke has risen above the Sistine Chapel, the signal that cardinals have chosen a new pope on the second day of the conclave.

White smoke poured out of the Sistine Chapel chimney Thursday, signaling that a pope has been elected to lead the Catholic Church. That means the winner secured at least 89 votes of the 133 cardinals participating in the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis. The crowd in St. Peter’s Square erupted in cheers.