Chicago’s South Side was solidly working class during Pope Leo’s childhood, said Rob Paral, a researcher at the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois Chicago. The family attended a South Side church, but they lived in Dolton, a suburb just past the city line.

The white smoke that billowed from the Sistine Chapel on Thursday signalled the selection of a new pope — the first from America. Thousands of miles away in Illinois, a sense of ecstasy greeted the man previously known as Robert Prevost,

Pope Leo, the first pope from America, has a rich faith journey that began in Chicago. As a child, Robert Prevost served as an altar boy at Saint Mary of the Assumption Parish. He earned a mathematics degree from Villanova and a diploma in theology from the Catholic Theological Union.

Prevost, who chose the papal name Pope Leo XIV, grew up in south suburban Dolton, and attended Catholic Theological Union.

Just days after making history as the first American Pope, Illinois native Pope Leo XIV is preparing for a reunion with his siblings in Rome, where his brother John Prevost will join him to celebrate this unprecedented moment for the Catholic Church and Chicago alike.

Pope Leo XIV took his first trip outside the Vatican on Saturday, heading about an hour's drive east of Rome to the small Italian town of Genazzano to visit a shrine to the Virgin Mary. The new pontif