Windy City native sees town abuzz as new favorite son begins papacy
By Deacon Patrick Murphy-Racey
Deacon Murphy-Racey
My heart is full as well as my belly as I find myself in my boyhood home trying to imagine how Pope Leo XIV grew up just a stone’s throw from my Chicago neighborhood.
I lost my mom to brain cancer in February, and so I am here visiting my dad, who is in memory care. I come each month and take him out to eat, and we also go on drives to get him out of the facility.
We were eating bratwurst up in Kenosha when my phone blew up with the news of the new pope’s election by the conclave.
At first, I was stunned that he was from America. Then as the news trickled in, we found out that he was from the South Side of Chicago. The mayor then tweeted, “Everything dope, including the Pope, comes from Chicago.”
The city went crazy, with everyone trying to figure out if Pope Leo XIV was a Cubs or Sox fan. But everyone came together and we found ourselves trying to imagine how the news of our new pope could be real.
I grew up on the extreme southwest edge of the city of Chicago in an area called Beverly. Dolton, Ill., is a community just south and a little east from where I write this now.
Pope Leo was first known in the neighborhood as simply “Bobby.” Later, he became Father Bob. I’m still known as just Pat or Patrick, but on Sundays people mostly call me Deacon.
I know the entire country still is in disbelief about our American pope. I never thought my great-great-grandchildren would ever see this happen. But for those of us from Chicago, well, we can’t keep from smiling all the time. We will never be known as the “Second City” again after Thursday, May 8.
When I was born at Great Lakes Naval Base, which is north of Chicago, Pope Leo was 9 years old and attending St. Mary’s Catholic School in Dolton. When I was making my first Communion, Pope Leo was learning how to drive right here on the South Side. As kids, we would have both gone to sleep listening to the V8s scream around the track at Raceway Park in the distance. We both would have swum at Calumet Park Beach in Lake Michigan, maybe even at the same time.
We grew up in “The City that Works,” a true statement if there ever was one. To the east of us, the steel mills back in the day were cranking around the clock trying to keep up with demand from Detroit. Our new pope grew up in a neighborhood where blacks and whites punched the same clock, shared meals, and there would have always been someone coming on shift who didn’t speak English so well.
Chicago is a city of immigrants, where helping each other out was not just an option, but the way you moved forward in life.
When I was a kid and we needed a roof on the house, my mom would send me to the firehouse to ask who to get and when they were off next.
The South Side of Chicago is filled with as many blue collars as white. People work hard here, and we try to celebrate the differences between each other. Perhaps the Holy Spirit looked down on the extreme levels of polarization in our country and sent us one of our own to help us with that. Maybe we didn’t know how much we needed Pope Leo until he showed up.
I prayed pretty hard for this election and really hoped to see someone who would follow in what Pope Francis started. Let it suffice to say that I got much more than I could have ever hoped for. And I know my mom is doing somersaults in heaven.
Long live Pope Leo!
Deacon Patrick Murphy-Racey serves with the Paulist Fathers at St. John XXIII Parish on the University of Tennessee-Knoxville campus.
[Top photo: Students from Everest Academy in Lemont, Ill., cheer on May 8 after it was announced that Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was elected as the next pope. He chose the papal name Leo XIV. OSV News Photo/Vincent Alban, Reuters]