I had one refrain throughout the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV: “The only thing I’m willing to bet on is that it won’t be an American.”
So as I watched the loggia from Notre Dame’s dining hall that Thursday, when Cardinal Dominique Mamberti said, “Habemus papam! Eminentissimum ac reverendissimum Dominum Robertum Franciscum Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Prevost,” my first words were, “Prevost? Chicago?!”
Shows you how much I know.
Like many others who are not technically from Chicago (but just outside), I take great pride in being from the Windy City. I was devastated by initial rumors that the Holy Father was a Cubs fan, then elated by confirmation that he is a White Sox fan (as is right and just). But after making a few jokes about flat vowels during papal Masses, and whether the Holy Father prefers his Italian beef dry, wet or dipped, I began to reflect on what it means that the newly elected pontiff is from my hometown. The city whose Catholic culture formed my family, my friends and me also shaped the man who became the pope.
Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, has also been publicly moved by the fact that the city has produced a pope. I was curious to hear more about what affected him about this choice, as a leader in both the archdiocese and the global church. In a phone interview with America, he said that the values he sees among the people of his archdiocese inform Leo’s biography as well: “This is a culture in which people work hard, and they have pride in their faith and their family. They also are deeply spiritual and take their practice of the faith seriously. And also there is really a commitment to being loyal to people.” In our conversation, Cardinal Cupich named several gifts that Leo’s Chicago heritage can bring to the global Catholic Church.
Catholic social teaching in the city of Chicago
Cardinal Cupich said that in Leo’s choice of name, he could also see echoes of Chicago Catholicism, a city with a history of Catholic social action.
“One of the things that I’ve learned over the years being here in Chicago is that the labor unions are very familiar with Leo XIII and ‘Rerum Novarum,’” said Cardinal Cupich of the document that marks the beginning of modern Catholic social teaching. He referred to the Rerum Novarum awards, a yearly event at Mundelein Seminary where unions honor leaders who embody Catholic social teaching and fundraise for seminarians. “[The archdiocese has] had really good relationships with labor unions, and they also have seen the importance of having our priests understand the social teachings of the church as it relates to them. Probably more than any other diocese in the United States, we are quite advanced in and putting into practice ‘Rerum Novarum’ as it relates to the rights of workers.”
Cardinal Cupich said he hopes to see a similar emphasis carried forward in a 21st-century context.
He said that Leo’s personal experience living in Chicago helps him to see the value of Catholic social teaching made concrete, “and I imagine that’s going to continue, particularly as he’s already raised concerns about artificial intelligence. How is that going to impact the labor market? … The new technologies now put us in a whole different moment, and that is something the new pope has indicated he wants to address.”
Leo’s Peruvian background and the culture of encounter
Of course, Leo is not just a Chicagoan, or even just an American. He served as an Augustinian missionary in Peru during the 1980s and 1990s, and as Bishop of Chiclayo from 2015 to 2023 before his appointment to the Dicastery of Bishops in Rome; he even became a Peruvian citizen.
But Leo’s commitment to encountering people different from him may have begun at home, said Cardinal Cupich. Leo grew up on the South Side of Chicago, and Cardinal Cupich said this “multicultural environment” included many immigrants. “I think that had an impact on [Leo] in many ways, as he has felt called to work with people in a different culture.”
By all accounts, Father Prevost thrived as a missionary. Chiclayanos danced in the streets to celebrate his election. Peru’s president, Dina Boluarte, said in a celebratory video message on X, “He chose to be one of us, to live among us, and to carry in his heart the faith, the culture, and the dreams of this nation.”
Signs of hope for church renewal
Soon after Leo’s election, the public learned about his childhood parish: St. Mary of the Assumption. The Far South Side church building has sat empty since its merger with St. Mary Queen of Apostles Parish in Riverdale, Ill., in 2011. St. Mary Queen of Apostles was merged in 2019 with two parishes in South Holland, Ill., St. Jude and Holy Ghost to become Christ the Savior Parish.
Mergers like these are familiar occurrences in many American dioceses, Chicago included. The Archdiocese of Chicago’s 2023 Data Composite shows that in 1975, there were 455 parishes in the archdiocese. By 2024, that number had more than halved, down to 216. Consolidations and mergers offer some way for parishes to retain their community as the financial resources and parish attendance dwindle. Still, it marks a shift in a city that was once shaped by parish life.
My grandparents belonged to a generation of Chicago Catholics who answered “Where are you from?” with the name of their parish. Those days are past; some of the parishes they reference no longer exist.
In this changing landscape of U.S. Catholicism, Cardinal Cupich sees the election of Pope Leo as a sign of hope, for the city and for the country: “I would suspect that people are very proud that Chicago produced a pope, and it testifies to the fact that there’s a lot of good here in the city that recommends itself to the church and to the city that we should really be proud of and and be happy about.”
St. Mary of the Assumption, the parish that produced a pope, is in poor shape: The pews are cleared out, and the hole in its roof can be seen from the street. But the stained glass windows remain intact, streaming vibrant light into a once-abandoned place. Now, people are flocking to the church and moving to conserve it, marking it as the place that raised a pope.
Still, I am reminded that if St. Mary’s is rehabilitated, there will be hundreds of parishes across the country that are not. Still Cardinal Cupich noted signs of vibrant faith in the city.
“I’m hearing from pastors, especially, that there really is a renewal in people’s lives as they’re looking at their faith,” he said. Cardinal Cupich also echoed reporting coming from Leo’s meeting with representatives of the media: “The pope even remarked that he heard anecdotally that somebody returned as an active Catholic, and had a real good experience with the election of the pope.”
Chicago’s witness to a global church
When asked his thoughts on Chicago representing the United States to the wider church in Leo’s pontificate, Cardinal Cupich said, “I think that every city and nation reflects some aspect of [the] goodness of human nature, and that's surely the question here in Chicago. So we don’t have a unique claim on that.”
Nevertheless, he said Chicago has distinct gifts to offer the global church: “People of Chicago are known for their willingness to take up tasks together. You know, the poet [Carl Sandberg] has called us the City of Big Shoulders, where we’re not afraid of challenges that come before us. We’re pretty straightforward, not only in the way we speak—[but] the way we act. We can be decisive and make sure that we don’t obscure getting to the truth by overplaying ideas rather than realities, as Pope Francis has counseled [“Evangelii Gaudium” nos. 231–233]. We’re a working-class city. We work together. We have challenges, enormous challenges, but we’re not daunted by those challenges that are before us, and we look for a way to work together.”
As the church moves into a new era under the leadership of Leo XIV, I place myself among the Chicagoans in whom Cardinal Cupich sees increased hope. Listening to the cardinal’s reflections, I think of the synodal process and how this attention to reality and commitment to working together will be vital for the church to continue down this path, as Leo has referenced. I also think of my mother, with her blunt speech and her tenacity, and I wonder why I was so surprised about the church electing an American when these gifts are so concrete in my ordinary life in Chicago.
In news coverage from the announcement of Pope John Paul II’s election, the surprise of newscasters about the election of the first non-Italian pontiff in 455 years was palpable. Since then, we have seen a German, an Argentine and now an American take up the Petrine office, reminding us of the power of the church to unify peoples from across the globe in a common commitment to the Gospel. Every corner of this earth has distinct charisms to offer the church, and I am proud that in the papacy of Leo XIV, the church and the world will witness the beauty of a faith formed by the city I love most.
