On Thursday, Pope Leo XIV became a new leader to the world’s 1.4 billion Roman Catholics.
To the Rev. William Lego on the South Side of Chicago, who was watching television in his office when the new pope was announced, he was his old friend Bob.
“They picked a good man,” said Father Lego, the pastor of St. Turibius Parish, who has known the new pope since their high school days. “He had a good sense of right and wrong, always working with the poor.”
The new pope, who was born Robert Francis Prevost, hails from the Chicago area, where he grew up in a southern suburb just outside of the city.
His 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 Chicago Heights, a suburb 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 Rosary Society, according to her death notice in 1990.
Noelle Neis remembers sitting behind 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.”
By the time the newly elected pope reached adolescence, he was looking toward the priesthood, enrolling in St. Augustine Seminary High School in 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 Archdiocese of Chicago serves roughly two million Catholics in Cook and Lake Counties, about one-third of the counties’ population.
In Chicago, as word began to spread that the new pope was one of their own, Catholics said they were thrilled — and a touch overwhelmed.
“Not only is he an American, but he is from Chicago,” said Veronica Cervantes, a 52-year-old executive recruiter. “That right there is shocking.”
Mitch Smith and Robert Chiarito contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
Julie Bosman is the Chicago bureau chief for The Times, writing and reporting stories from around the Midwest.
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