Leo XIV gave his father's inheritance to help build a church in Peru
According to "American Pope," the new book by NPR journalists Daniel Burke and Scott Detrow reported by People magazine, after his father Louis Prevost died in November 1997, the then-Augustinian missionary used his inheritance to pay for the concrete foundation of a church in the Santa María neighborhood in Peru. Women from the neighborhood had asked the friars for help: they had land but no building, and the community gathered in makeshift shelters of thatched leaves and sticks. Prevost helped with paperwork and equipment but left the main tasks, including seeking donations abroad, to the parishioners. His father made extended visits to Peru, where seminarians called him "Luigi"; his picture still hangs in the formation house's chapel.