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.

The white smoke that billowed from the Sistine Chapel on Thursday signalled the selection of a new pope — the first from America. Thousands of miles away in Illinois, a sense of ecstasy greeted the man previously known as Robert Prevost,

Robert Prevost, a missionary who spent his career ministering in Peru and took over the Vatican’s powerful office of bishops, was elected the first pope from the United States in the 2,000-year