Chicago’s South Side was solidly working class during Pope Leo’s childhood, said Rob Paral, a researcher at the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois Chicago. The family attended a South Side church, but they lived in Dolton, a suburb just past the city line.

After white smoke billowed Thursday from the Sistine Chapel, signaling that a pope had been chosen, students in every classroom at The Frances Xavier Warde School in Chicago had their eyes glued to TV screens.

Before ascending to lead the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIV — formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost — grew up in Chicago, spent decades in Peru, then arrived in Rome.