In this wretched industry known as "the news," a local angle on national—or better yet international—headlines is manna from journalism heaven. So you can imagine our dismay when, moments after white smoke puffed skyward toward actual heaven from the Sistine Chapel on Thursday, initial Google search results yielded precious little for "Robert Prevost Minnesota."
After scrolling just a bit further, however, we stumbled upon a bombshell: The LinkedIn page for Robert Prevost, a Twin Cities public relations pro who happens to share birth names with Pope Leo XIV, the Chicago-born man who had just become the Catholic Church's first American pope. Papal jackpot!
"Yes, today has been pretty hilarious indeed with the news," the locally based Prevost wrote us via email ahead of our call. "Lots of texts."
With that, we present the following exclusive conversation, which was certifiably the best Minnesota-Robert Prevost connection—until we discovered Jana Shortal's freaking mom knows the new pope. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away...
Racket: When did you hear the big pope news?
Robert Prevost: It's kind of funny. My younger brother and I are actually in Las Vegas for a little brothers' birthday golf getaway. Yesterday we were sitting at the golf course, grabbing a little lunch, and the news alerts came across our phones. My brother just blurted out, "HA! My brother's the pope!" We'd seen he was one of the guys in the running, and we were just laughing. Then, literally, my phone starts "bzz, bzz, bzz" for the rest of the day. Probably a couple hundred messages, which has been pretty surreal and hilarious.
And it's not like Pope Bob Smith or whatever. It's a fairly uncommon name.
Right? Midwestern guy. Just two Midwestern fellas doing their thing. I think the other part that made it even a little funnier is, when he chose the name Pope Leo... Leo is our dog. People that know us, family and friends, are like, "OK, this is too much, this is a conspiracy."
No way! Uncanny. What kind of dog?
We have a labradoodle.
Gotcha. Are you a Catholic?
[Laughs.] I am actually. I mean, I grew up Catholic. I'm not practicing or anything.
[Laughs.] Unreal. I don't know how much reading you've been doing on vacation, but outside of the name, are you happy with the pick for pope? Did the conclave get it right?
In what little I've read, he seems like a guy who's willing to lift people up. Give people voices who maybe don't have voices, help people in need. I hope it does good things. I'm all about that.
I know the pope drives a very cool car, the Popemobile. What are you driving?
I drive a Jeep Wrangler.
OK, you could maybe get a little bulletproof bubble pod for that…
Yeah, pop the top off. Put a little chair in the back. It could work.
I gotta ask: Is my outlet the only one that has contacted you so far?
No. Actually, I just got off the phone with Runner's World magazine, which is super weird and random.
Crazy. What did they want to talk about?
They were like: We saw the new pope, and we did a quick search to see if he has any kind of running background. They said he doesn't, but they came across my name and saw I was a runner. I don't know, seemed like a bit of a stretch but everybody is looking for a funny angle, I guess.
Well, I can't be a hater about a little bit of a stretch, because that's what we're operating with. Anything pope-related or you-related you wanna get out there before I let you off the phone?
No, man. It has just been a pretty funny day. When we were golfing yesterday, we got paired up with a couple dudes and they're like, "Ahh, we're golfing with the pope!" They took a couple pictures. It has all been fun.
