A stable family life benefits any child. Pope Leo XIV, who calls his siblings at least weekly, is one good example.
Then-Bishop Robert Prevost would call his older brother, John, daily from his post at the Vatican as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops. So too with his oldest brother, Louis, in weekly phone calls. The Prevost brothers are close — a detail the public has learned through John’s and Louis’s extensive media appearances.
At their age, all three 69 years or older, having such close relationships is a rarity. About one-third of older Americans say they feel lonely or isolated. Those who survey differently may be better off, but the bar is low: In the digital age, humans have less social interaction and fewer friends overall. A rise in senior homelessness is likely in the coming years, partly a result of the low marriage and family formation rates cemented by widespread antisocial tendencies, a stunted dating market, and propagandized childlessness.
At a time when it was still the norm, Louis and Mildred Prevost raised their three children in an intact, deeply religious home. Undoubtedly, Pope Leo is a product of it. A new study establishes evidence for a causal relationship between divorce and negative child outcomes, as detailed by the Institute for Family Studies. “Fathers work 16% more hours and mothers work 8% more hours after a family splits up,” the analysis explains, as well as resultant differences in adult earnings, teenage births, incarceration, and child mortality. Changes in address affect outcomes, too, as children “generally move to lower-quality neighborhoods, often with their mothers.”
POPE LEO’S ELECTION UNDERSCORES RELIGION’S ENDURING RELEVANCE
Those are a few risks of divorce. The psychological effect of parent estrangement, observed in part by the distance from one parent to another, is a harder-to-measure element of divorce, but is surely one of the more common and far-reaching aspects of a child’s life.
Pope Leo emerges as a clear example of the opposite, having come from what seems to be a spiritually and relationally nourishing household. His groundedness is clear, from his early calling to his missionary endeavors to his doctrinal orthodoxy. The importance of family, community, and the human person is clear in his expressed social stances. Now, the Church — and society as a whole — stands again to benefit from one simple, lasting marriage.