{"id":644707,"date":"2026-03-10T04:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T04:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/644707\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T04:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T04:03:12","slug":"owner-of-pope-leos-childhood-church-school-pushing-to-preserve-buildings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/644707\/","title":{"rendered":"Owner of Pope Leo’s childhood church, school, pushing to preserve buildings"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a push to save Pope Leo XIV’s childhood church and school after it made Preservation Chicago’s Most Endangered list<\/a> last week. <\/p>\n

The annual Chicago 7 Most Endangered list sounds the alarm on buildings and structures that are imminently threatened.<\/p>\n

Now, St. Mary of the Assumption is at risk of being demolished.<\/p>\n

“It’s still surreal to me,” said Joe Hall.<\/p>\n

When Hall bought the abandoned church, he didn’t expect the spotlight.<\/p>\n

“Nature-made sunroof on top of the church,” he said.<\/p>\n

St. Mary of the Assumption in Riverdale hasn’t hosted a mass since 2011.<\/p>\n

\"pope-leo-childhood-church-and-school.jpg<\/p>\n

St. Mary of the Assumption is at risk of being demolished.<\/p>\n

CBS News Chicago<\/p>\n

“The one thing that remained constant and still intact are the beautiful stained-glass windows,” Hall said.<\/p>\n

The forgotten church and old school building are suddenly the focus of attention for good reason. It’s where Pope Leo XIV went to school and to church.<\/p>\n

“To know that an actual pope walked through these hallways and in these classrooms is amazing,” he said.<\/p>\n

Hall is committed to preserving the place.<\/p>\n

“This is my opportunity to sort of give back to what was poured into me a long time ago,” Hall said.<\/p>\n

He’s counting on help from a second spotlight.<\/p>\n

“Recently, it’s been announced that we are part of the Chicago 7 now,” he said.<\/p>\n

The church and its campus are on the Preservation Chicago list of most endangered buildings.<\/p>\n

“We spotlight them if you will, so that developers and other stakeholders can come together and realize how important these resources are and invest in them,” said Ward Miller, executive director of Preservation Chicago.<\/p>\n

A spotlight might be all this church needs.<\/p>\n

“It really does open this up as an idea for a pilgrimage site,” Miller said.<\/p>\n

“The idea is to turn the church into what’s called an oratory, a place where people can come, you know, and have intimate events, but the main thing is it will be a place where the community can come in and actually, you know, pray,” Hall said.<\/p>\n

And someday, maybe this place could welcome back a pope.<\/p>\n

“And that’s the goal, is to get this place up and running to the point where he can come home,” Hall said.<\/p>\n

Empty and endangered for now, but full of possibility.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There’s a push to save Pope Leo XIV’s childhood church and school after it made Preservation Chicago’s Most…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":644708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,30573,5386,1818,3417],"class_list":{"0":"post-644707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-church","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois","12":"tag-pope-leo-xiv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116202897801813945","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}