Catholic Charities uses Cozen O'Connor for state government lobbying. So does Rush University Medical Center, which performs abortions, and CVS Health, whose pharmacies dispense prescriptions that end pregnancies.

Chicago’s South Side was solidly working class during Pope Leo’s childhood, said Rob Paral, a researcher at the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois Chicago. The family attended a South Side church, but they lived in Dolton, a suburb just past the city line.

Chicagoans celebrated the historic election of Pope Leo XIV, the first pope from the U.S. and a Chicago native, with joy and hope for a renewed focus on social justice and unity within the Catholic Church.

CHICAGO (WGN) — Pope Leo XIV is an Augustinian priest ... And not only that, but Cardinal Robert Prevost is the first American pope in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church. Father Thomas McCarthy has known Prevost for nearly four decades.

A popular Chicago restaurant chain is celebrating the election of Pope Leo XIV with a sandwich named in the pontiff’s honor.

As cardinals in Rome get ready for the papal conclave, some kids in Chicago got an idea of their job ahead with a special activity Tuesday.

At St. Mary of the Assumption school in Chicago’s southern suburbs, Robert Prevost was quiet, kind and studious. Mostly, he wanted to be a priest. It was the 1960s, and the parish school was a hub for Catholic families in the working-class neighborhood.

Robert Prevost, the Chicago-born missionary who spent his career ministering in Peru and took over the Vatican’s powerful office of bishops, was elected the first pope from the United States in the history of the Catholic Church on Thursday. Prevost, a 69-year-old member of the Augustinian religious order, took the name Leo XIV.