ROME — ROME (AP) — Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on Thursday invited Pope Leo XIV to go to his native Chicago subsequent 12 months throughout a personal assembly with the pontiff on the Vatican.
In a letter that Johnson handed to the pontiff, the mayor recalled Pope John Paul II’s go to to Chicago and Mass in Grant Park on Oct. 5, 1979, “endlessly remembered as probably the most spiritually inspiring day in Chicago historical past.”
“Your Holiness, you have been a younger priest-in-training on the time. Maybe you have been there. Maybe you’d think about a repeat Papal go to almost 50 years later to share your personal message of hope, unity and repair,’’ Johnson wrote.
Johnson, who grew up the son of a pastor, invited the pope to say Mass in Grant Park in 2027, noting that Chicago is residence to one of many largest Catholic populations in the USA.
It’s at the least the second official invitation that Leo has acquired to go to the USA. U.S. Vice President JD Vance invited Leo quickly after he grew to become pope final Could.
Leo was born Robert Prevost in 1955 within the South Aspect of Chicago neighborhood of Bronzeville and grew up in suburban Dolton, close to St. Mary of the Assumption, the place he attended Mass and elementary faculty.
He later studied theology on the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago in Hyde Park and taught in native Catholic colleges.
