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.

After a series of closures by the Chicago Archdiocese, Christ Our Savior Church in South Holland has bragging rights as Pope Leo XIV’s childhood parish.

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.

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.

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.

St. Mary of the Assumption Parish included this photo commemorating the 1982 meeting of a newly ordained Robert Prevost and Pope John Paul II in its 1986 book marking its 100th anniversary. Prevost and his family were devout and dedicated parishioners of the Far South Side church.

Cardinal Robert Prevost, a Chicago-area native and former substitute teacher at St. Rita High School, has become the first American pope in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church.

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.