- September 4, 2025 Association
By Associate Patrick Jendraszak
After the death of Pope Francis and while plans for the consistory (Council of Cardinals) were being established, my prayers for my friend, Bob Prevost, took on new form. As I remembered him in prayer, and all those involved in the process, I felt fairly certain that Bob would be the next Pope — a ministry I would not wish on anyone, and yet, a ministry for which he was imminently suited.
I have known Bob — now Pope Leo XIV — since 1973. He was a graduate of the Augustinian Minor Seminary in Holland, Michigan, and I was a graduate of Mendel Catholic Prep in Chicago when we met for the first time in the Augustinian Pre-Novitiate at Villanova University. Most of my classmates came from the Minor Seminary. Having studied together for four years, their history formed a community that I was joining from outside.
Bob was very welcoming. It didn’t take long for me to realize I already knew his mom, Millie, who had been the librarian at my high school. And Bob was very helpful as I was learning about religious life. I remember sitting, rather confused, in our chapel at St. Mary’s Hall for common prayer (lauds and vespers). Sitting next to me, Bob explained how to use the breviary, where the “ribbons” should be placed so that I could move easily from section to section. It seems like such a small thing, but it was important as I tried to join this new life.
Our friendship continued to grow, from our community celebrating Thanksgiving together to accompanying Bob as he bought his first car to driving back and forth from Villanova to our homes in Chicagoland. Since I graduated from college a year before Bob, I went to the novitiate in St. Louis a year before him. Bob was one of the acolytes when I made my simple profession in 1977 and then, after his year of novitiate, we were in community together again in Chicago at the John Stone Friary, studying at the Chicago Theological Union.
We were drawn together in friendship by our commitment to poverty, in spirit and in fact, and our study and experience of cross-cultural ministry. Training prepared us with knowledge that life in another culture changes oneself. You cannot simply “go back” to being the cultural person you were before. Life in another culture transforms you into a new person, beyond the culture in which you were raised and, yet, not simply a member of the culture in which you ministered.
That is why, as the consistory met, I told friends that the cardinals could select Bob, since he was not an American. To be clear, Bob is not simply an American; neither is he a Peruvian or an Italian. He is a citizen of the world, having spent probably a third of his life in Peru and another third in Rome. He has a unique global perspective not just on the Catholic Church, but on the Spirit as it works in peoples and cultures worldwide.
Bob and I continued our friendship even as I left the community. So, when I married my dear wife, Loretta, in 1981, it was fitting that Bob was one of my groomsmen, along with my brother and a few other close friends. Loretta and I are probably one of the few couples who can say that the Pope was a member of their wedding party!
We have remained connected in various ways over the miles and the years. Bob and I often kept track of each other through my mother, who was a receptionist at the Augustinian Provincialate for many years. Bob was the Augustinian Prior General in 2003 when he celebrated the funeral Mass for my brother, who was also an Augustinian. Four years later, when we sent our son, Associate Andrew Jendraszak, to Italy, Bob was a dinner host, showing him the Sistine Chapel and giving him a car tour of Rome.
Of course, I now look at news articles about the Pope with new interest. And I pray for Bob in this new and immense ministry. But I truly cannot think of anyone who would be better for the Church.
When I see reports about Bob‘s humility, that resonates with my experience. I think that he would be the first to say that there is something of the Divine in each of us, that we are all made in the image and likeness of the Creator. True humility is knowing that we are all special in the eyes of the Creator Spirit. There are many gifts, but the same Spirit. And, as we would say in the Sisters of St. Joseph community, together, we are more!