US, Peru celebrate ‘native son’ Pope Leo XIV
CHICAGO—The old parish church buildings on Chicago’s far South Side where Pope Leo XIV grew up, attended grammar school and launched his career as a priest are now vacated and in disrepair, a victim of the sometimes painful changes within the Roman Catholic Church since he was a boy.
Even so, the derelict structures stand as a silent reminder to the new pontiff’s deep, longstanding ties to the city and the second-largest Catholic archdiocese in the United States.
Some 5,000 kilometers away in the Peruvian coastal city of Chiclayo church bells rang and local Catholics celebrated the election of former Cardinal Robert Prevost whom they have embraced as one of their own.
Prevost stunned his American hometown when the Vatican announced that the 69-year-old Chicago native had been chosen as the first US-born pontiff in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church.
His selection unleashed celebration among Catholics in the Midwestern city and a flurry of questions about the future of his papacy, from how it would shape the divide between church conservatives and liberals to whether he was a fan of the Chicago Cubs or their rivals, the White Sox.
He ‘gets us’
“For Catholics in Chicago, this is somebody who gets us, who knows us, who knows our experience, seeing the closures and the dwindling congregations, and the diminishing Catholic presence in America in general,” said Rev. Michael Pfleger, a priest at St. Sabina Catholic Church on Chicago’s South Side known for his political activism.
A crowd of clergy and staff members at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago’s Hyde Park, where the future pontiff obtained his master’s degree in divinity in 1982, erupted in joyful cheers as live television showed Pope Leo walking out onto the Vatican balcony in Rome.
“Many of us were just simply incredulous and just couldn’t even find words to express our delight, our pride,” said Sister Barbara Reid, president of the theology school. She said the room fell into prayer after the initial burst of excitement.
Brilliant
Reid described Pope Leo as a brilliant intellectual of extraordinary compassion.
“It’s an unusual blend that makes him a leader who can think critically, but listens to the cries of the poorest,” she said.
Lawrence Sullivan, vicar general for the Chicago Archdiocese, its 1.9 million Catholics and 216 parishes, said Pope Leo was also a very prayerful man.
“It’s a day of great excitement for Chicago, for the United States, to have one of our own be elected as the pope,” he said.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, in remarks posted on social media, was more plain-spoken in his exuberance, declaring: “Everything dope, including the Pope, comes from Chicago!”
Radiant pride
In Peru, where the now pope served as a missionary and later as bishop of the city of Chiclayo, jubilation is no less pronounced and pride no less radiant.
In the small city, the faithful gathered in front of the cathedral in the heat on Thursday after white smoke billowed from the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. As the announcement was made, they jumped and cheered. Bells tolled around the city.
“We are excited by this blessing from God,” Jesús León Ángeles, who is coordinator of a Catholic group in Chiclayo and has known Prevost since 2018, told Reuters by phone.
“We had been praying since yesterday when the conclave of cardinals began at the Vatican to elect the pope.”
León Ángeles said she had worked closely with Prevost on a number of charitable and social assistance projects in Chiclayo and nearby Trujillo, and in other impoverished towns across the country.
She told Reuters previously that Prevost was humble and down-to-earth, as well as being a person who liked to help others.
“He is someone who has leadership skills, but is also a good listener,” she said before the election. “He has that virtue. He is very well-liked, we love him very much, he is not an arrogant person.”
‘Tremendous gift’
In the Plaza de Armas, the main square of Peru’s capital Lima, dozens of people gathered at the cathedral next to the government palace.
“In the office we were waiting anxiously for the white smoke to see who would be elected Holy Father,” said lawyer Carolina Flores.
“It is a tremendous gift from heaven that he is Peruvian. For us the Pope is Peruvian. He is Peruvian because he has lived decades in Peru, he was a bishop in Chiclayo,” she said.
After the election at the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica and greeted the waiting crowds. During his first address as pope, he spoke briefly in Spanish, sending greetings to Peru and to Chiclayo.
