CHICAGO — On the first anniversary of Pope Leo XIV’s election, a group promoting the Catholic faith in Chicago’s south suburbs led an inaugural pilgrimage to his boyhood home and the church he attended as a boy.
The Pope Leo XIV American Legacy Foundation’s pilgrimage left downtown Chicago May 8 via shuttle bus and made its way to the first stop, Christ Our Savior Parish, known as “the de facto home parish” in South Holland, Illinois, of Pope Leo, who grew up as Robert F. Prevost.
“That location has the tabernacle from St. Mary,” Vince Kolber, chair of the newly established foundation, said. “What’s important about these three stops is that first we bring the Blessed Sacrament into our pilgrimage because Catholic pilgrimages do this. And Christ Our Savior is the nearest location of the Blessed Sacrament to the sites in south Chicago, St. Mary’s and the pope’s boyhood home.”
Overcast skies covered the day ahead as the shuttle pulled up to the box-shaped building with long stained-glass windows. The church, about 2 miles from his home, drew lots of attention in the early days of the pope’s election. And a year later, its sanctuary was more than half-filled for the special Mass of thanksgiving for Pope Leo.
Father Joshua Caswell, St. John Cantius Canons Regular superior, concelebrated the Mass.
“As people want to define who this Holy Father is — what is his agenda, his expectations — my dear friends, he has no other agenda than the salvation of souls,” he said in his homily. “So let us today on this anniversary of his election, pray for him, ask Mother Mary to comfort him, to be with him. And let us — you, my dear friends, you here on the South Side — not only to pray for him, but to be proud of him. Because what good can come from Dolton? The very best. May God bless Pope Leo.”
Christ Our Savior is the third iteration of the Prevost family’s home parish, St. Mary of the Assumption, located on the southernmost edge of Chicago, sandwiched between the villages of Dolton and Riverdale. Dolton, a south suburb, is where the pope lived until he was 13, when he went to the Augustinian minor seminary in Holland, Michigan.
In 2011, St. Mary merged with Our Lady of the Apostles to form St. Mary, Queen of the Apostles. This parish then combined with two other area churches in 2019 to become Christ Our Savior Parish. The parish church houses the original tabernacle of St. Mary of the Assumption.
Parishioners who knew the family said in 2025 the aging population at their parish was concerning. A year later, they said they were glad the pope was drawing in young people, not necessarily just to their church, but to the wider Church.
On the pilgrimage, Father Gosbert Rwezahura, Christ Our Savior’s pastor, said that in the year since the pope’s election, some young families have started going to Mass at the parish. He said the church being a stop along the new pilgrimage route would be good for the parish.
On the breakfast tables set up in the Christ Our Savior parish gym after Mass, “ways to support” forms for the fledgling Pope Leo XIV American Legacy Foundation were laid out. The foundation, so far singularly funded by Kolber, is working to convert St. Mary of the Assumption into an oratory.
The property, surrounded by now impoverished suburbs, including Dolton and Riverdale, is owned by Joe Hall, a Chicago DJ. Hall has plans to turn the church’s seven-building campus into a workforce development hub with community mental health and memory care services, a food pantry and an arts program for youth. Hall’s JBlendz Enterprises, a nonprofit, projects a total $15.2 million budget for the entire project including the oratory. His nonprofit is working with the Pope Leo XIV American Legacy Foundation and Preservation Chicago.
Father Caswell led the pilgrimage gathering into the old church’s space with a still-broken rose window, but freshly covered up graffiti on the wall behind the altar area and the holes in the roof patched up. He reminded the group of about two dozen that, although the church was abandoned, it “still remains a sacred space.”
At the pope’s boyhood home, now owned by the Village of Dolton, the final stop of the pilgrimage — at least until an envisioned museum exists — the Midwest Augustinians blessed and hung a portrait of the pope in the living room.
Groups walked through the tiny house and backyard, where Kolber was manning the exit route. He said “the Holy Spirit has been very, very busy” even since before the pope’s election, as he worked on revitalization efforts for the area with Dolton officials and members of the Greater Chicagoland Black Chamber of Commerce, which resulted in the foundation.
“Our mission, really, is to be the unifying presence of the Roman Catholic faith in this south land (south suburbs) of Chicago, where the Prevost family lived and enjoyed and worked,” he said.
