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,

Pope Leo, the first pope from America, has a rich faith journey that began in Chicago. As a child, Robert Prevost served as an altar boy at Saint Mary of the Assumption Parish. He earned a mathematics degree from Villanova and a diploma in theology from the Catholic Theological Union.