Steel and Sacrament: Louis Prevost's Enduring Legacy

The late Louis Prevost's steelworker union card (Local 1033) sits framed on Pope Leo XIV's desk, a silent rebuke to Vatican excess. His father's lunchpail Catholicism - praying rosaries during smelter breaks, donating overtime pay to parish food banks - inspired the pope's sweeping labor reforms: mandatory living wages for all Church employees, including migrant gardeners; whistleblower protections for abuse reporters modeled after union grievance procedures; even a "St. Joseph the Worker" credit union offering low-interest loans. "Dad taught me Christ is in the grievance meeting," says the pontiff, who still wears Louis's battered St. Christopher medal. Most radically, he's applied steel mill safety protocols to clergy formation - psychological evaluations replacing the old "sink or swim" approach. Traditionalists grumble about "unionizing holiness," but the pope counters: "If we claim to value human dignity, paychecks are theology."