All of Chicago, church participants attended Sunday Mass. He is surprised and cheered about the Pope elections of the Indigenous Peoples on the south side of the city. They told the story of when he was Robert Prevost.
“There’s no more war,” Pope Leo XIV says in his first Sunday message
Pope Leo XIV addressed the crammed square of St. Peter, reflecting his predecessor, Pope Francis’ repeated theme, an urgent plea for peace.
Chicago – Rome, an ancient city and historic home of the Catholic Church, approached the south on Sunday as Chicagoans still knew the reality that their neighbour’s son became Pope, the first American.
Pope Leo XIV, successor to Pope Francis, was born about three miles south of Chicago’s iconic Downtown Loop area, and first learned his faith in the diocese suburbs south of the city. The stubborn residents have been celebrating the news since last week’s election at Conclave.
“That’s great,” said David Williams of Southsider, who attends a packed Mass at the Cathedral of Holy Names. “Now we are known for Michael Jordan, Al Capone and Pope. Chicago Holy Trinity. Let the public decide what order they want to put in.”
Leo’s election came as a complete surprise in Chicago. The city of 2.6 million has long been known as a Catholic fortress in the United States. However, the pope of the nation was seen as unthinkable given America’s power over the world stage.
Now that Leo is elected, some say Chicagoans are actually what the world needs.
“It shows us that Jesus brought us from very wealthy to very poor,” said Williams, 62. “This is a wonderful extension of Christian tradition.”
His wife, Frida Williams, expects him to reach all.
“Chicago is multicultural, so they really got people who are multicultural,” the 68-year-old said. “They really have someone to represent all of the people.”
Parishs of the church, located just north of the loop, said Mass on Sunday after Leo’s election was more crowded than Easter.
Leo’s first public in Chicago after the election is tempting for South Side Native to deliver his own first Sunday speech at St. Peter’s Square, warning of the “fragmented” World War III and seeking peace.
Around his hometown, the church was decorated with yellow and white flags of the Vatican, and the people of the church cheered “Viva Papaleo XIV.”
Leo loves Chicago, Cumbia and tennis, Bishop says.
The assumption of St. Mary, the church where Leo studied his faith, is closed, but the other institutions he served remain, so too are many people who knew him when he was just Robert Francis Prevost.
Outside Southside Church on Sunday, Bishop Daniel Turley spoke about the moment he learned that Leo would become Pope. He was at his Chicago home for the Augustinians when white smoke began to become bold from the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican city, informing the world that a new Pope had been chosen.
Tarley, 82, thought it could be his old Augustine brother and a companion to Southsider: Robert Previst.
“I thought it was him, I really did,” Tarley said. “That wasn’t a surprise at all.”
The two Augustines took a strange similar path. They both grew up in the Southern parish on a 20-minute drive. Both joined the religious order, focusing on service as a way to God, and both served in Peru.
Tali was bishop of Chulcanas, located near the border with Ecuador and north of Chiclayo, with Leo serving as bishop. Tali is also a double Peruvian citizen.
“It’s really something – he’s from Chicago. He really loves Chicago and he knows it well,” Turley said. But “He really has the spirit of a missionary, so I think he’ll carry it with him as Pope, so he’s really going to have a great interest in the whole world.”
Turley soon knew the Pope as a fan of the White Sox, avid tennis player and lover of Common Common Common Common in northern Peru.
According to Turley, serving as missionaries in a South American country gave them a special thanks for their faith.
“People are truly holy people who put extra effort on you,” he said. “It strengthens your faith when you meet good people and there are plenty around them.”
To attend Mass, it felt like walking on sacred ground.
Daily Southern parishioners remember Leo from behind when he was Cardinal Prevost.
“We were really excited to come to church today, as if we were walking on sacred ground,” said Alondra Aribia, in St. Rita, Cassia, a home south of Augustine’s Religious Order Leo, once headed over. “He came from home, this is our parish, it’s very beautiful.”
Aribiar, 29, was attending a four-month Mass with her husband Alfredo and her boy Theodore, 14 months old and Lucas.
The family saw the front be made of cards of the time on the south side, just like last year, when he congratulated them.
“It’s as close as you could see the Pope for us,” the 32-year-old father said. “We are shocked. We are blessed, happy, and we are going home.”
Can Leo convert this Cubs fan?
Among the church fans celebrating the news at Mass on Sunday were Ted and Katie Colbbs to visit his son Nathan in town.
The 53-year-old Catholic pair said they never imagined they could see the American pope, let alone Americans from the Midwest.
“It’s especially exciting to be here,” Katie said.
Nathan, 25, was also excited even if the Pope was a White Sox fan.
“I’m more of a Cubs fan,” he said.
When Pope Leo was asked if he could convert him, he dizzed.
“Maybe it’s not, they’re pretty bad,” said an office worker in downtown. “But he can help turn things around.”