ROME — Three hours after Pope Leo XIV was elected the 267th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, good friend Lisa Solava emailed him from her house in southwest suburban New Lenox, the place she and her husband, Wealthy, have been panic packing for a flight to Rome the subsequent morning.
“We’re arriving Friday, however I assume we are able to’t have you ever out for pizza, huh?” she wrote.
The brand new pope, her good friend of greater than 20 years whom she nonetheless thinks of as “Father Bob,” shortly responded: “No, however possibly you could possibly are available in.”
Nonetheless answering his personal emails. A great signal, Solava thought.
Perhaps some issues will keep the identical even when all the things has modified in probably the most extraordinary of how.
“He stated sure to the costume, it’s his uniform now,” she stated, smiling, throughout an interview with the Solar-Instances on Tuesday at an out of doors café in Rome’s Piazza Navona, the place she and her husband have been joined by Denise Utter to share tales about their longtime mutual good friend, Robert Prevost, as he rose to the papacy.
Wealthy Solava’s voice quavered as he spoke concerning the weight of duty his good friend now shoulders. Tears welled in his eyes as he thought of the stress the brand new pontiff will endure for the remainder of his life, and the way his mates might want to let go of him a bit in order that the pope can befriend the remainder of the world.
However not earlier than there was yet another evening along with pizza and selfies.
20-year friendship
The Solavas and Utter first met the Rev. Robert Francis Prevost, aka “Father Bob,” when he was the prior common of his spiritual order, the Augustinians, and would cease to go to with their then-pastor, the Rev. Michael Schweifle of St. Jude Catholic Church in New Lenox. Prevost and Schweifle have been classmates at Villanova College.
On Easter Sunday 2005, Schweifle underwent a coronary heart transplant at Loyola College Medical Heart. His restoration was prolonged, and Lisa Solava grew to become one in every of his foremost volunteer caregivers. When Prevost got here by means of city, usually on layovers from one in every of his many journeys world wide visiting Augustinian missionaries, he would cease to see Schweifle, and finally befriended a variety of St. Jude parishioners, together with the Solavas, Utter and her husband, Rob.
After Schweifle handed away in 2009, all of them stayed in contact. Each {couples} finally grew to become Augustinian “affiliates” — lay individuals who assist the order in varied methods and are formally acknowledged as a part of the “Augustinian household.”
In 2011, the 2 {couples} traveled to Rome, the place Prevost was dwelling on the time. He picked them up from the airport in a tiny Italian automobile full of their baggage, put them up on the Augustinian home in Vatican Metropolis and confirmed them the websites, together with a personal tour of the Sistine Chapel and the Room of Tears — a small antechamber off the Sistine chapel the place the newly elected pope modifications into his papal vestments for the primary time.
When Prevost’s tenure as prior common resulted in 2013, he returned to Chicago for what turned out to be not so long as everybody anticipated. In 2014, he acquired a name from the papal nuncio as he was driving again from Wisconsin, Utter and the Solavas recalled him telling them over an Italian dinner at one in every of their favourite haunts, Gattos in New Lenox.
“Are you sitting down,” the nuncio requested.
“Properly, sure, I’m driving,” Prevost stated.
“Pull over,” the nuncio stated. He had information. Pope Francis was going to make Prevost a bishop in Peru. It was sudden.
However, Prevost instructed his mates, “It’s a must to belief and say sure to the decision.”
“That’s once we actually began to get to know his belief in saying sure to the decision and to the Holy Spirit, wherever it was going to take him,” Utter stated.
‘An incredible humorousness’
In 2015, his fellow Augustinians held a celebration in Chicago to have fun his being made a bishop. The festivities occurred to fall on Lisa Solava’s fiftieth birthday. Prevost kidded along with her on the gathering, “Do you just like the get together I threw for you?”
“He’s received a fantastic humorousness,” stated Lisa Solava, now 60, who works in company HR. “And the perfect snort,” her husband added.
Earlier than he left for Rome to attend what his mates referred to as “child bishop college” — coaching classes held on the Vatican for newly-ordained bishops — he indulged Lisa in taking a selfie along with her (he’s not a fan, usually).
Then Lisa instructed him the one birthday current she wished from him was a selfie with Pope Francis.
Just a few days later, within the wee hours of the morning in New Lenox, her cellphone chimed. It was a textual content message from Prevost with a photograph connected: A selfie with Pope Francis, as requested.
The good friend group continued to go to in individual once they may. Most not too long ago, then-Cardinal Prevost visited New Lenox in August 2024. The Solavas hosted and served pizza. (Not from Aurelios.)
Over pizza that summer time night, Prevost talked about how popes are chosen, Utter and the Solavas recalled.
“He stated everyone needs a Holy Father that matches into this aim and he stated, ‘Francis is the Holy Father that we would have liked. Benedict was the Holy Father that we would have liked then, John Paul II was the one we would have liked previous to that, and so forth and so forth,” Lisa Solava stated.
“There was no sense that it will ever be him,” Utter added. “However he stated, ‘Don’t lose religion. The Holy Spirit is at all times with us. And … the Holy Spirit introduced us this pope.’”
After Pope Francis’ demise, Prevost’s title started surfacing within the lists of “papabile” (or potential candidates to be the subsequent pope). Involved for her good friend, Lisa Solava despatched him an e-mail on April 27 to say she and lots of different mates have been praying for him.
“We will’t even start to think about what this whirlwind should be like for you proper now. … All of us have combined emotions for you. On one hand, we received’t be disenchanted should you don’t find yourself strolling out on the balcony, purely for egocentric causes of wanting to maintain our mates considerably accessible. However alternatively, we might be completely overjoyed if that seems to be God’s will for you. Your knowledge and compassion would carry a lot to the world.”
Just a few hours later, Prevost responded, saying, partly:
“Thanks for the message. I sleep nicely at evening (to this point) trusting within the perception that there won’t be an American pope.”
Utter despatched him the same e-mail earlier than mattress one evening because the conclave was about to start, expressing sympathy for the lack of Prevost’s good friend, Pope Francis, and providing him her prayers.
When she awoke the subsequent morning, Prevost had responded, saying partly: “Pray for whoever’s going to be elected to this. They want our prayers. … Belief within the Spirit.”
“He stated, ‘they.’ It was by no means him,” she stated.
Somewhat greater than per week later, on the night of Could 8 in Rome, Father Bob grew to become Pope Leo XIV, pontifex maximus, the bishop of Rome, successor to St. Peter, the primary pope from the USA, the primary from North America, and popularly often called the “first American pope” — even when he’s the “least American of the People,” in line with his mates.
When the white smoke appeared from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, Utter, 60, a author and ministry coach who works with Catholic and Protestant clergy and congregations, was in St. Peter’s Sq., the place she’d been conserving watch for 2 days. When his title was introduced and he walked out on the central loggia, she let loose a scream that she stated was nearly primal. The following few hours have been a blur of joyful disbelief as 1000’s of strangers celebrated “Papa Leone.”
“They don’t even know him, they usually love him!” she stated.
Lisa and Wealthy Solava have been at house in entrance of the TV in New Lenox. All three mates had made plans to be in Rome the week of the conclave, even when they weren’t certain why on the time. They simply had a sense, they stated.
Not lengthy after the Solavas arrived in Rome and met up with Utter, the buddies acquired textual content messages from their St. Jude pastor, the Rev. Raymond Flores, who was accompanied by one other parishioner — the pope’s brother, John Prevost: Leo wish to have dinner with them at his condo close to St. Monica’s Church, his titular parish in Rome across the nook from St. Peter’s Basilica.
“The Holy Father is inviting us to his place. So, let’s meet at St. Monica’s at 4:45 … then we are able to go to dinner. Will that work?”
“Will that work?? Are you kidding? You title it and we’ll be there,” they responded.
Once they received to the flat that belonged to Cardinal Prevost earlier than he was Pope Leo (reportedly he’ll transfer into the papal palace a while after his set up on Sunday), “No one wished to stroll in first,” Lisa Solava recalled. “However I’m not shy. I walked in and he was speaking to his private secretary, Eduardo, and I believed possibly I shouldn’t be there , however then I noticed [the pope] and stated (jokingly) “Perhaps I shouldn’t are available in, this seems personal.”
“And he stated, ‘Get in right here.’”
When the 4 mates have been reunited, there have been hugs. A lot of them. “Bear hugs.”
For the higher a part of an hour, “we simply frolicked,” Utter stated. “We talked and shared issues we have been seeing and listening to. We had quite a bit to get in in simply a short while.”
Now the pope, however nonetheless ‘Father Bob’
As for his or her good friend, the outfit had modified — the pope wears his white papal vestments in all however probably the most personal events, “any time anyone sees me,” he instructed them — however the man sporting it had not.
“He was nonetheless very serene … comfy in his personal pores and skin,” Wealthy Solava, 70, stated.
“He was nonetheless Father Bob, however you could possibly see he had began to rework,” Utter stated. “He put it on, however he wore it nicely.”
They joked with the pope about coming to go to them once more in Chicago.
“I stated, ‘You in all probability can’t come to my home for pizza with out all of your safety,’” Lisa Solava stated. “He goes, ‘I’ve to have safety.’ I’m going, I imply, should you wished to carry the Swiss guard and have them out within the entrance garden…’
“He says, ‘Your neighbors would possibly marvel.’ He laughed and stated, ‘Yeah, I feel we’ve to come back again right here,’ that means the Vatican. I stated, ‘That appears like an invite and we’ll see you quickly.’”
When it got here time to go, Pope Leo requested his mates in the event that they’d like a photograph — one thing they hadn’t even considered as they have been catching up.
“He goes, ‘Do you guys wanna do an image?’” Lisa Solava recalled. “And I’m going, yeah. He goes, ‘A selfie, proper?’”
Cathleen Falsani wrote concerning the set up of Pope Benedict XVI because the Solar-Instances faith reporter and columnist from 2000-2010. She is on the Vatican to cowl the set up of Pope Leo XIV for Chicago Public Media.
