MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The new leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIV, was born and raised in the Chicago area - devout Catholic family. Throughout the city today, Chicago Catholics were overjoyed at the news. I want to bring in Lauren FitzPatrick from the Chicago Sun-Times and member station WBEZ to tell us more. Hi, Lauren.
LAUREN FITZPATRICK: Hi.
KELLY: Hey. So a pope from Chicago - tell us more about his roots in the city.
FITZPATRICK: He was born Robert Francis Prevost at a hospital on Chicago's near South Side. He's the youngest of three boys in a very Catholic family. His dad was a World War II vet and became an educator, and his mother worked as a librarian. The family lived in a little brick house in a bordering suburb called Dolton, and they bought this house brand new in 1949 with a $42 monthly mortgage.
KELLY: Wow. Yeah.
FITZPATRICK: Yeah. The family was known to be very dedicated members of an old parish called St. Mary of the Assumption that sits at Chicago's far South end. And folks describe this parish as just the center of everyone's life in the neighborhood. You know, please picture blocks of dozens of children playing in uniforms, walking to school, into town. The mom, Millie, was known to be one of those church ladies who just keep a parish humming.
KELLY: That's such an interesting portrait of a community in which he grew up. So I'm thinking, Lauren, today of that huge reaction we watched today at the Vatican. The new Pope stepped out on the balcony, greeted the crowd in Italian and Spanish. There was applause there in Vatican City. What was the reaction in Chicago at a hometown boy being named pope?
FITZPATRICK: Oh, in Chicago it was joy, optimism, immense, immense pride. Chicago's mayor, Brandon Johnson - who I will note is not a Catholic - said, quote, "everything's (ph) dope, including the pope, comes from Chicago." So then...
NOELLE NEESE: My siblings, we were all like, oh, my God, that's amazing. It really is amazing. I'm really proud. And, yeah, that's so cool - just, like, one of us.
FITZPATRICK: So that's Noelle Neese, who was one of Pope Leo's grade-school classmates down at the old St. Mary School. I got to speak to another classmate who was in the same class as the pope, and he said when the pope was a boy, he was known - like, he was just so smart. He always sat in the No.1 seat and was known to be really kind and compassionate.
KELLY: And you told us a little bit about his home, that $42 mortgage. Tell me more about the church, the institutions that would have been part of his upbringing because the Catholic Church in the South Suburbs, that that has changed from how things look today.
FITZPATRICK: The sad part is that all these places that today could be centers of celebration are just all gone - they've closed. The area back then was really full of Catholic families, and they had lots of kids. And in the meantime, you know, Dolton's Catholics both moved farther out into the burbs and now everybody just has fewer children. So the St. Mary of the Assumption parish got consolidated and then ultimately closed. Mendel Catholic High School, where his mom worked and where his brothers went, became a public high school. The Augustinian college in the South Suburbs where a young Father Prevost lived for a time - that closed. And I mean, it's hardly unique to Chicago, this trend. St. Augustine Seminary High School in Michigan is also gone.
KELLY: That is Lauren FitzPatrick with the Chicago Sun-Times, giving us a little bit of the background in that city of the new pope. Lauren FitzPatrick, thanks so much.
FITZPATRICK: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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