https://www.gloria.tv/en.newsLeo XIV's True Last Name is not Prévost, but RiggitanoPope Leo XIV's paternal grandfather was from Milazzo, in the province of Messina in Sicily.
His name was Salvatore Giovanni Riggitano. He was born in Milazzo on 24 June 1876.
Riggitano's birth and marriage certificates, issued by the municipality of Milazzo, have been published.
Salvatore left Italy on the ship Lombardia, which set sail from Naples and arrived in Quincy, Illinois, in 1904. His sister Rosa remained in New York. In America, Salvatore Giovanni became John. He also changed his surname to Prévost, the surname of his wife Suzanne's mother.
An advertisement for a certain ‘Riggitano-Prevost’ appeared in the Chicago Tribune on 6 May 1934.
In 1940, at the request of the authorities, he declared that he was not an American citizen and that his name was John Riggitano Prevost, although he had entered the United States under the name Salvatore Giovanni Riggitano Alioto.
Why did Riggitano become Prevost?
The name change from Riggitano to Prevost likely stems from a scandal that rocked the family in 1917.
At the time, John Riggitano was a language teacher in Chicago. His wife, Daisy Hughes, accused him of adultery with Suzanna Louise Marie Fontaine, a woman from France. The affair made headlines in the Quincy Daily Herald, and both John and Suzanna were briefly arrested.
To escape the scandal and legal consequences, John fled with Suzanna, abandoning Daisy, whom he had married in 1914. He left Illinois and reemerged in New York under the name Jean Prevost.
Shortly after, his son, John (Jean) Centi Prevost—the uncle of the current pope—was born. In 1920, another son, Louis Marius Prevost, the father of Leo XIV, was born in Chicago. Both birth records listed Jean Prevost, born in France, as the father.
Persto: So Leo's grandparents lied on Leo's father's birth certificate, due to an adulterous 2nd marriage.
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