TORPY: From South Side Chicago baby boomer to ‘da pope’

My phone blew up Thursday afternoon after white plumes of smoke in the Vatican gave word that Cardinal Robert Prevost, a South Side native, was the new pontiff.

Already the memes are flooding in — the first one had the new pope cradling a Chicago beef sandwich.

It may be a bit sacrilegious, but it comes from a place of love — and pride.

There is a sense of communal satisfaction and parochial ownership that a boy born in 1955 at Mercy Hospital is now the spiritual leader of 1.4 billion Catholics.

My first thought was that the White Sox, who play just 12 blocks from Mercy, lost a record 121 games last year. So it seems God was finally doing us South Siders a solid by giving us the pope.

At first, I read he’s a fan of the North Side’s Cubs, which indicates that no human is perfect. But media outlets quoted his brother saying that he’s a Sox fan, which I’d argue shows he is infallible.

Either way, being a Chicago fan of any stripe means he’s used to suffering.

Credit: NYT

Credit: NYT

Now known as Leo XIV (that’s the 14th for those not Roman numerically inclined), the new pope grew up in Dolton, a working-class suburb on the border of Chicago’s Southeast Side.

It was an unremarkable town not far from the steel mills. Each summer, my family headed out to a big picnic in Dolton — which seemed like the sticks — where some of dad’s buddies had moved. There were always lots of kids. Lots and lots of kids.

The homes were 1,200-square foot pill boxes with tiny trees in the yard, a community where the former warriors of World War II and their wives planted their flags and brought about the baby boom. (Prevost’s dad was a Navy man in the war, as was mine.)

Dolton grew from 3,000 residents in 1940 to 25,000 in the 1960s.

The Chicago Sun-Times carried a story about Prevost and his time in Dolton, attending St. Mary of the Assumption parish school. A photo of his second-grade class of 1962 has 47 seemingly obedient kids in the classroom.

My first-grade class picture from St. Killians, a few parishes away, had 42 kids. So we learned early how to get along with each other because life was always so crowded.

Credit: Bill Torpy

Credit: Bill Torpy

Prevost’s elementary school is now closed, as is mine, as many Chicago parishes closed or were combined after the old white ethnic enclaves moved out to the suburbs as families sought to improve their lots in life.

The new pope’s father was an educator and his mother a librarian, so he is a learned man of books, as well as faith. He has a doctorate of canon law from the Pontifical College of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, a long leap from St. Mary of the Assumption.

The fact that he is an American has surprised the world. The betting line — yes, there is a betting line, even on the selection of popes — had him as a long shot. That’s because common wisdom had it that the rest of the world was looking side-eyed at the USA because of its own grand leader.

So it goes to show that anything can happen: A boy from the working-class American ‘burg can one day be pope!

I’d love to hear what South Side Chicago native Cardinal Wilton Gregory, Atlanta’s former Archbishop and my mom’s buddy, has to say about this. He was one of the voters. I read Prevost was picked on the fourth vote, which shows that the Cardinals wanted to get something done quickly. I’m also seeing online chatter about backroom voting and the “Chicago Way.”

I’m sure fellow South Sider Barack Obama will somehow be blamed ... or credited.

Having attended a Jesuit high school, I was happy with the last pope, Pope Francis, the Catholic Church’s first Jesuit pontiff. The Jesuit order is known for being intellectual, to the point of being sometimes argumentative, and having a missionary zeal.

But I figure the Church is good for only one Jesuit every couple millenia.

The fact that the new Pope Leo is from the Augustinian order, another first, I think says something: the Church is, again, trying something new.

The Augustinians were originally a monastic order and known for service to the community, which is in short supply these days.

As a young priest, Prevost moved to Peru, spending many years in that country doing missionary work, serving as an archbishop and even becoming a citizen of that country. MAGAs are already bashing the new pope for having criticized JD Vance on the former Twitter.

But that just shows he has a heart.

I think it was because he became a young priest in a Catholic Church that had a more progressive tilt. That, and experiencing poverty, stuck with him.

He spent time in St. Louis, so he knows Midwest values, as well as time in Rome, which no doubt helps in Vatican politics.

He seems to be a consensus choice who checks a lot of boxes for the conclave, which, by the way is a great movie, although I didn’t like the ending.

But this ending, I love.