VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — A new book published in Italy reveals further elements that fuel the hypothesis that Cardinal Robert Prevost had long been the successor designated by Pope Francis.
On April 7, the Italian publishing house Piemme released a new book by Vatican News journalist Salvatore Cernuzio titled Padre (“Father”), which gathers several testimonies exchanged between the Vatican reporter and the late Pope Francis — including one that suggests a particular fondness for then‑Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost.
“Him? He’s a saint,” Francis told Cernuzio, specifying that by the word ‘saint’ the Pope meant “people capable of calmly handling discussions, tensions and complex situations, and of managing to create unity.”
Starting in 2012, Cernuzio and Francis developed a deep and confidential friendship — one that, as the book’s title suggests, could be likened to a father‑son relationship. Their conversations, phone calls, and meetings were numerous and often spontaneous.
In the book, Cernuzio recounts that on several occasions the Pontiff alluded, sometimes half‑seriously, to the question of his future successor on the Throne of Saint Peter. Although he specifies that Cardinal Prevost’s name was never the direct subject of discussion, the one time it was mentioned elicited a reaction of genuine admiration from Francis in the terms described.
As Cernuzio suggested in an interview with OSV News, the relationship between Francis and Leo XIV is not one of simple continuity but of operational complementarity. “Pope Francis used to say, ‘Initiate processes, don’t occupy spaces,’” Cernuzio recalled. “He opened paths, and now Pope Leo is walking them,” he added.
If confirmed and placed within the broader context of information that has emerged in recent months about Cardinal Prevost’s role in Francis’s Vatican, this detail appears revealing: his election was anything but sudden. It was, in some way, suggested by Francis himself before his death. Corroborating it is the speed with which the cardinal electors — never so numerous in history — converged on the same name.
Father Prevost, the Prior General of the Augustinians, was not yet a bishop when Francis was elected in 2013. In 2015 Francis appointed him bishop of Chiclayo in Peru; member of the Dicastery for the Bishops in 2020; prefect of the same Dicastery (the most pivotal office after the Secretariat of State and the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith) in 2023; and then created him cardinal-deacon in the same year. While Francis was still hospitalized at Gemelli, on February 6, 2025, he promoted Prevost to cardinal-bishop of the suburbicarian see of Albano with an astonishing act of apparent generosity and without any obvious motivation.
Cardinal-bishops hold the highest rank within the College of Cardinals, granting them the right to take part in the most sensitive decisions of the Curia and to be eligible for the role of Dean of the College. Typically cardinal-deacons — the lowest rank — may request promotion to cardinal priests ten years after their creation.