Father’s Day: These were the parents of the last four popes of the Catholic Church

The last four popes of the Catholic Church – Juan Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francisco and our new Pope, Leo XIV – had working parents who instilled in each of their children important qualities and values, many of which can be reflected in the way they lived their priesthood and carried out their pontificate.

Here you have a look at the parents behind the last four popes:

The father of Pope Leo XIV: Louis Marius Prevost

Louis Marius Prevost was born in Chicago (United States) on July 28, 1920 and was of Italian and French ancestry. Shortly after graduating from the university, he served in the Navy during World War II and, in November 1943, he became an executive officer of a tank landing ship. Prevost also participated in the landing of day D in Normandy on June 6, 1944, as part of Operation Overlord. He spent 15 months abroad and reached the rank of Lieutenant Junior before the war finally ended.

Upon returning home, Prevost became superintendent of the Brookwood 167 school district, a district of primary schools in Glenwood, Illinois. In 1949 he married Mildred Agnes Martínez, also originally from Chicago and school librarian. Prevost died on November 8, 1997, at 77, because of colon cancer and arteriosclerotic heart disease.

According to New York Timesin a 2024 interview on Italian television, the future Pope recalled an occasion when he entrusted his father for his desire to leave the minor seminar than he attended to marry and have a family.

“Maybe it would be better for him to leave this life and marry me; I want to have children, a normal life,” said Cardinal Prevost had told his father at that time.

His father replied telling him that “the intimacy between him and my mother” was important, but that was also intimacy between a priest and the love of God.

“There is something to listen to here,” he recalled the future Pope.

Pope Francis’s father: Mario José Bergoglio

Mario José Bergoglio was born on April 2, 1908 in Turin (Italy). In 1929, he and his family emigrated from Italy to Argentina to flee the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. In Argentina he worked as an accountant and was an employee of the Argentine railways, a stable and respected position at that time. He married Regina María Sívori in 1935 and had five children, being the greatest the future Pope Francis. Mario José Bergoglio died at age 51, in 1959.

The Bergoglio family lived in a working area of ​​Buenos Aires, where the Father’s profession certainly influenced his own vision of fatherhood and family life. Although the Pope did not speak much publicly about his relationship with his father, he often referred to the importance of parents and the need for them to be present in the lives of their children, exhorting them to be patient and understanding, already correct their children without humiliating them. Francisco frequently cited San José as a model for all parents.

Pope Benedict XVI: Joseph Ratzinger

Joseph Ratzinger Father was born on March 6, 1877 in Winzer (Germany). Since 1902 he worked as a policeman. In 1920, at 43, he married Maria Penintner. Joseph Alois Ratzinger, who would become Pope Benedict XVI, was the third and most young son of the family.

Ratzinger Father was a devout Catholic and firmly opposed the Nazi regime. He often refused to obey his orders to persecute opponents and, as a result, was harassed by the Nazi hierarchy. To avoid sanctions, he had to change his way frequently. On August 25, 1959 he died at age 82.

During the World Families Meeting In 2012, Pope Benedict spoke about the memories he had of his father and his family while growing.

“For us, the essential point for the family was always on Sunday, but on Sunday it started on Saturday afternoon,” he recalled. “The father told us the readings, Sunday’s readings, taken from a very widespread book at that time in Germany, in which the texts were also explained. Thus began on Sunday: we were already in the liturgy, in an atmosphere of joy.”

The father of Pope John Paul II: Karol Wojtyla

Karol Wojtyla Father was born on July 18, 1879 in Bielsko-Biała (Poland). He was a tailor, but in 1900 he was called to the Austrohungal Army, in which a total of 28 years passed. After the recovery of Poland’s independence, he was admitted to the Polish army, where he served as a lieutenant until his retirement in 1928.

Wojtyla Father married Emilia Kaczorowska and together they had three children: Edmund, Olga (who died in childhood) and Karol, who would later be Pope John Paul II. In 1929, Emilia died due to heart and kidney problems, and three years later Edmund died of scarletine. This left Wojtyla Father by his son Karol. In 1938, he and Karol moved to Krakow so that the young man could attend the Jaguelonian University. Wojtyla Father died on February 18, 1941, at age 61.

Pope John Paul II frequently spoke about his father’s faith and how he inspired his vocation to the priesthood.

The Polish Pope said Once on his father: “Day after day I could observe the austere way he lived. By profession he was a soldier and, after my mother’s death, his life became a constant prayer. Sometimes I woke up during the night and found my father on his knees, as he always saw him kneeling in the parish church. We never talked about the vocation to the priest of domestic seminar ”.

Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in CNA.