'I lived next door to Robert Prevost when he was 6 years old - I knew he would be first US pope'

A childhood neighbour of Robert Francis Prevost once eerily predicted he would be the first American Pope, his brother has revealed. Prevost, 69, was yesterday elected at the , and will be now known as after securing enough votes in the .

from the on Thursday, signifying that the had a new leader. Pope Leo is the 267th occupant of the throne of St Peter, and is notably the first American to ever become Pope.

He was born in 1955 in Chicago, . He previously served as an alter boy and was ordained in 1982. He also has Peruvian nationality, and moved to Peru in 1985 - although he still regularly returned to his home country and served as both a .

His brother, John Prevost, spoke to ABC News about his brother's election and recalled how their childhood neighbour had once said he would be the first American Pope.

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"We just laughed because he was six and I was seven. Who knows what some lady is saying? You just find that interesting. But that stuck with me all this time," he said.

"Then as he became a priest, then a bishop, then a cardinal, I thought 'maybe this is going to happen.'"

However, the revelation didn't spark much reaction from other family members, who simply shrugged it off.

"I think they just thought it was children talking. Who's going to take something like that for real. But the neighbour saw something in him at that time.

"The Holy Spirit is moving somebody and moved him and something's going on that hopefully is a positive for the church."

More than 60 years later, the neighbour's prediction came true as, after securing enough votes in the , Prevost was chosen as the new leader of the Catholic Church.

The Chicago-born Prevost began studying to become a priest with the Catholic Church at the age of 18, before going on to graduate from Villanova University in Pennsylvania with a degree in mathematics in 1977.

Following his graduation Prevost first went to Peru in 1985 as a missionary before being named the Roman Catholic Diocese for the Chulucanas region that same year. Prevost returned to work as a pastor in Chicago in 1987 for one year before becoming the head of the Augustinian seminary in Trujillo, Peru - a role he kept for a decade.

In 1998, he was elected as the head of the Augustinian Province of Chicago, making him one of the leading religious figures in the United States. While he makes history as the first American pope, the religious leader has not been shy about his disapproval of President in the past.

Despite this, the US leader was one of the first notable figures to congratulate Pope Leo on his new role, he will 'look forward to meeting' the new pontiff in a post on his Truth Social platform.

On Thursday evening Pope Leo stepped out onto St Peter's balcony to greet the crowds gathered in the square - and the - for the first time as the 267th pope. He waved to the thousands in the square as they cheered and chanted his name. He spoke in Italian and then switched to Spanish, recalling his many years spent as a missionary and then archbishop of Chiclayo, Peru.

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