The First Pope from the USA is from Illinois

The white smoke wafting up from the Sistine Chapel meant that a new pope had been chosen. Cardinal Robert Prevost was born in Chicago in 1955. He now becomes the first Pope from the United States.

White Smoke Means New Pope

Prevost has chosen the name Pope Leo XIV. He started as an alter boy at St. Mary of the Assumption on the far south side of Chicago, just south of the Little Calumet River off of South Leyden Ave.

St. Mary of the Assumption Parish - Chicago

Prevost was elevated to Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Monica in Rome in 2023 by Pope Francis, and later named Cardinal-Bishop of Albano earlier this year. He began serving the church in Peru in 1985, returning to Chicago in 1999 to be the provincial of the Augustinian Province of Chicago. In 2001 Prevost began serving two consecutive terms as Prior General of the Augustinians in Chicago.

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Then in 2014 Pope Francis appointed Prevost to the position of apostolic administrator of the Chiclayo Diocese, becoming Bishop there a year later.  By 2023 he’d been brought to Rome as a cardinal and in February of this year he was promoted to cardinal-bishop of the Albano Diocese in Rome.

From the deep south side of Chicago to Vatican City, a kid from Illinois is the new Pope.