At Catholic elementary schools in Chicago on Thursday afternoon, the intercoms crackled with a surprise announcement — “Habemus papam!” — prompting students to jump on their chairs and whoop with excitement.
Crowds materialized outside Holy Name Cathedral downtown, considered the mother church of Chicago Catholics, and workers hung yellow and white bunting over the arched doorway.
Across the country, Catholics marveled at the announcement of the first American pope, something that had long seemed impossible. But in Chicago, they heard something else: The pope was one of their own.
Though he spent much of his life abroad, the new Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Francis Prevost, hails from the Chicago area, where he grew up in a suburb just south of the city and attended a Catholic church and school on Chicago’s South Side.
In Chicago, he was largely unknown until the announcement came on Thursday.
Wes Rehwoldt, who attended St. Augustine Seminary High School and then Villanova University with the pope, said he thought the local news in Chicago might have been overplaying the possibility that his former classmate could be selected. Then he heard the name on television.
“I cried,” said Mr. Rehwoldt, 69. “We really didn’t think there was a big chance that that was going to happen, until the announcement came and they said ‘Robert Francis’ — and I couldn’t hear anything else.”
Chicagoans quickly tried to figure out where Pope Leo XIV fit into their big, complicated city, which is home to hundreds of thousands of Catholics. Was he a fan of the White Sox or the Cubs? Was he from the city or the suburbs? More crucially, where did he attend church as a boy?
“No one in Chicago could relax until they knew which parish he was from,” said Bridget Gainer, a Cook County commissioner and member of a large South Side Catholic family. “Because then I know 85 percent of what I need to know about him.”
Pope Leo XIV’s family belonged to the now-shuttered St. Mary of the Assumption Parish in the Riverdale neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, then populated by throngs of Catholic families. His father, Louis Prevost, was a school superintendent in Cook County. His mother, Mildred Prevost, was a librarian and deeply involved in parish life, serving as the president of the St. Mary Altar and Rosary Society, according to her death notice in 1990.
Noelle Neis remembers sitting in front of the Prevost family every Sunday at 9:15 a.m. Mass as a child at St. Mary’s.
“You’d kind of always go to the same Mass and file in the same pew,” said Ms. Neis, 69, who lives in the Chicago suburbs. “They were always there.”
John Prevost, a brother of the pope who lives in the Chicago suburb of New Lenox, Ill., said that Pope Leo XIV grew into a person who could follow in the footsteps of Pope Francis, his predecessor.
“My brother has great, great desire to help the downtrodden and the disenfranchised, the people who are ignored,” he said from an interview in his home. “I think they’ll see great similarities there. He’s simple, really. He’s not going to go out for a 19-course meal.”
Many of the Catholic institutions that the pope attended as a child are now closed. The number of parishes in the Archdiocese of Chicago dwindled to 216 by 2024, from 445 in the mid-1970s.
The area where the pope grew up has changed dramatically in the decades since he left. In Dolton, the small suburb hugging Chicago where the Prevost family lived, 94 percent of residents were white and 2 percent were Black in 1980. By the 2010 census, 5 percent of Dolton residents were white and 90 percent were Black.
Ms. Neis said she hoped the selection of an American pope, particularly one from the Chicago area, could help revitalize the Catholic Church.
“Maybe people will feel more connected, because he is one of ours,” she said. “He is an American. He’s a Chicagoan.”
Marianne Angarola, who attended Catholic grade school with the pope, said he was a strong student who was smart, kind and well-behaved, though not much of an athlete. She said it was clear even then that he was destined for a career in the priesthood.
“Everyone knew without a doubt that he was destined for rising through the ranks of the Catholic Church,” she said. “He had a calling at a very early age.”
By the time the newly elected pope reached adolescence, he was looking toward the priesthood, enrolling in St. Augustine Seminary High School near Holland, Mich., a boarding school for boys.
There, he lived in the Augustinian tradition, with its intense focus on community: eating together, studying together, sharing everything about their lives.
The new pope then studied at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, earning a Bachelor of Science in mathematics in 1977, before returning to Chicago to attend Catholic Theological Union, a graduate school, and earn a divinity degree.
The Rev. William Lego, pastor of a parish on the South Side of Chicago, knew him since their high school days.
He saw a lot of Chicago in his old friend, particularly his sense of social justice and devotion to the poor.
But Father Lego said that the new pope had spent so much time abroad, his perspective on the world was unusually broad.
“He’s very intelligent, very ordered,” he said. “He has a very good sense of right and wrong.”
The pope retained ties to Illinois throughout his life, returning at various points for postings with the Augustinians. He has continued to vote in his home state, public records show, including casting an absentee ballot in the November presidential election. According to records from Will County, in suburban Chicago, the pope has voted in three Republican primaries since 2012 and no Democratic primaries in that time. He most recently voted in a Republican primary in 2016.
The Archdiocese of Chicago serves roughly two million Catholics in Cook and Lake Counties, which is about a third of the counties’ population.
Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago celebrated the day as “one of the biggest moments in the modern history of our city.”
“Pope Leo XIV will be a champion for workers all over the world,” he said. “It’s only right that he was born and educated in the most pro-worker city in America. The Catholic Church has a strong tradition of standing up for the poor and the vulnerable, and I know that Pope Leo XIV will continue that tradition.”
Outside Holy Name Cathedral, Father Gregory Sakowicz said he was “happily shocked” that a cardinal from Chicago was elected — something he learned during Mass on Thursday.
“A lady I was giving Holy Communion to said, ‘The new Pope is Cardinal Robert Prevost’ and I said ‘Body of Christ,’” he recalled, “and then said ‘Thank you for sharing that.’”
Robert Chiarito contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
