13 hours ago
5
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
When Pope Leo XIV was selected in May as the next leader of the Catholic Church, his hometown, Chicago, erupted in shocked delight. There were joyful newspaper headlines (“DA POPE!”), impromptu gatherings at parishes across the city, and a “Pope-A-Roni” pie marketed by a local pizza joint.
On Saturday afternoon, the city will have a chance to formally celebrate together for the first time. The occasion is a festive program and Mass organized by the Archdiocese of Chicago and hosted by Rate Field, the home of the White Sox.
The event on the city’s South Side was designed as “an opportunity to say that there’s a lot of good that happens in Chicago,” said Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, who will speak at the event and preside over the Mass. “I hope it’s a moment when people in Chicago can be proud of being from Chicago.”
More than 30,000 tickets to the event sold out within days of the announcement last month, organizers said. Some tickets quickly appeared on secondary markets for more than $1,200, according to The Chicago Sun-Times. (The White Sox, who are in last place, average fewer than 17,000 fans a game.)
“This city as a whole is in love with our new pope because he is of us,” said Bob Reiter, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, a network of labor unions that worked to distribute thousands of tickets to union members. Leo’s selection has been particularly electrifying to the labor movement, Mr. Reiter said, because he chose a name echoing Leo XIII, the turn-of-the-century pontiff sometimes called the Pope of Labor.
The program on Saturday includes music, prayer, speeches and Pope Leo’s first public address to an American audience, in the form of an almost eight-minute video recorded at the Vatican.
