Chicagoans quickly tried to figure out where Pope Leo XIV fit into their big, complicated city, which is home to hundreds of thousands of Catholics. Was he a fan of the White Sox or the Cubs? Was he from the city or the suburbs? More crucially, where did he attend church as a boy?
“No one in Chicago could relax until they knew which parish he was from,” said Bridget Gainer, a Cook County commissioner and member of a large South Side Catholic family. “Because then I know 85 percent of what I need to know about him.”
Pope Leo XIV’s 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 Cook County. His mother, Mildred Prevost, was a librarian and deeply involved in parish life, serving as the president of the St. Mary Altar and Rosary Society, according to her death notice in 1990.