VATICAN CITY \u2014 They don\u2019t eat Italian beefs in Italy, but that won\u2019t stop Mayor Brandon Johnson from meeting one-on-one in Rome later this month with Chicago\u2019s most famous son: Pope Leo XIV. <\/p>\n
Johnson on Thursday confirmed he\u2019s planning to sit down with the Chicago-born, Dolton-raised pope at the end of the month in Rome.<\/p>\n
He won\u2019t be the first Chicago-area politician to spend time with His Holiness \u2014 Gov. JB Pritzker<\/a> and Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias have already done so \u2014 but the mayor might be the only one bold enough to gift the famous White Sox fan merchandise from the team\u2019s North Side rivals.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll probably bring him a Cubs hat,\u201d Johnson, a Cubs fan, said in an interview with Block Club Thursday<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t know if he\u2019ll wear it, but I\u2019ll bless it nonetheless.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnson said he\u2019s planning to express to Pope Leo the \u201cenormous amount\u201d of gratitude and pride Chicagoans have in him. The pope has \u201celevated the consciousness of the globe around his position and stance around our collective humanity,\u201d Johnson said. <\/p>\n Pope Leo XIV \u2014 born Robert Francis Prevost \u2014 was selected as the first American pope in May 2025<\/a>. Prevost was born in Bronzeville, grew up in suburban Dolton and went to church at St. Mary of the Assumption on the Far Southeast Side.<\/p>\n He later attended the Catholic Theological Union in Hyde Park. <\/p>\n Leo\u2019s ascension to lead the world\u2019s Catholics has been widely celebrated in Chicago, from a specially-named \u201cDa Pope\u201d beer<\/a> to a celebratory mass held by his very own White Sox at Rate Field<\/a> in Bridgeport. <\/p>\n The pope\u2019s White Sox fandom has been well-documented, with photos emerging of him attending games during the team\u2019s 2005 World Series run. The Sox are having a surprisingly good season this year, with a .500 record placing them only 1.5 games behind Cleveland to lead the American League Central division. <\/p>\n As he prepares to head to the Vatican to meet with Pope Leo, Johnson on Thursday admitted that getting him to don a Cubs hat may be a tall order. He might take a simpler approach and ask for some spiritual help for the North Siders, who are off to a strong start to the season but as of Thursday had lost four games in a row. <\/p>\n \u201cIf his Sox keep playing this well, though, I\u2019m going to ask him to bless our guys on the North Side,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then, of course, we\u2019re going to pray for potentially a Cubs-White Sox World Series.\u201d <\/p>\n Listen to the Block Club Chicago podcast:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VATICAN CITY \u2014 They don\u2019t eat Italian beefs in Italy, but that won\u2019t stop Mayor Brandon Johnson from…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":796716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,1322,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-796715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-featured","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116575100278024041","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796715","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=796715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}