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Pope Leo's Childhood Home Draws Crowds in Chicago Suburb
Confirmed
In Short: The home, built in 1949, has attracted visitors from far and wide, with people coming to see where the Chicago-born pope spent his childhood.
The modest brick home at 212 E. 141st in Dolton, Illinois, has become a focal point for visitors since Pope Leo XIV, formerly Robert Francis Prevost, was elected as the new pontiff.
Dolton resident Yolanda Hannon, who was visiting the house with her daughter Madison and mother Janae, said, 'My family lives around the corner, so I’ve walked by here ever since I was a little kid.'
Lamont Terrell, who lived in the home from 2016 to 2023 with his late mother and sisters, said, 'I think that people are going to see what this community is really about now, how tight-knit and hardworking we really are.'
The home, built in 1949, has attracted visitors from far and wide, with people coming to see where the Chicago-born pope spent his childhood.
Kareem David and his wife, Donna, who live in the adjacent home, said, 'Before we even knew there’d be a pope next door. It’s amazing. We hope it turns into a museum. People have been nonstop visiting it through the night. We’ve barely gotten any sleep.'
Children ran up and down the block as the sounds of a radio sermon filtered outside through the windows of the home next door, where Donna herself is a minister.
The village recently began offering private tours of the home for some reporters and religious groups, along with Prevost’s brother, John.
While the home remains closed to the public, the village has been managing the influx of visitors, with police investigating an unfounded bomb threat directed at the home of Pope Leo's brother.
Pope Leo XIV, who was born in Chicago’s Mercy Hospital and grew up in Dolton, has expressed his excitement about his hometown, saying, 'Great things happen in my hometown.'
The Chicago Tribune reported that students at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Academy were planning to send the pope items including get-well cards and a Chicago White Sox blanket.
What this adds
The home's transformation into a tourist attraction highlights the community's pride and the global interest in Pope Leo's background.
Background
Chicago-based iconographer Joseph Malham created a Marian icon for Pope Leo XIV, who will keep it in his bedroom.
What's confirmed
- The Chicago-born pope made his first public comments to commemorate the anniversary, speaking in English at the end of his traditional Sunday noon blessing from his studio window overlooking St.
- At the time, he was the Chicago provincial leader of the Augustinians.
What's still developing
- “I put those numbers up,” Terrell said of the black 212 house numbers to the left of the home’s bright red door, which he also painted.
- “A lot of people have talked badly about Dolton, calling it violent or dangerous,” Hannon said.
- Chicago and Dolton residents have excitedly claimed him as their own.
- Johnson said the pontiff “was very gracious and very encouraging” about a series of executive orders that he had issued to push back against federal immigration enforcement operations in Chicago.
- After Pope Leo was elected, he traveled to Genazzano — which is about 40 miles southeast of Rome — to pray before the image located in the basilica.
- Doctors diagnosed the 71-year-old Chicago-born pope with pulmonary adenocarcinoma, a cancer that affects both smokers and non-smokers alike.
- The Holy See Press Office said in a statement on Oct. 14 that the pope had undergone scheduled blood tests and chest X-ray, which confirmed that his postoperative recovery is progressing normally.
- ROME — Mayor Brandon Johnson invited Pope Leo XIV to celebrate Mass in Grant Park next year during a much-awaited meeting Thursday afternoon in Vatican City, where the son of a pastor and chief executive of the pope’s hometown said the two bonded over their advocacy for migrants, descendants of slavery and the city of Chicago — intracity sports rivalries notwithstanding.
- Peter’s Basilica that the College of Cardinals had chosen their Chicago-born confrere Robert Prevost as pope, I shared the widespread excitement of my fellow journalists, Catholic and otherwise — most of all, the Americans.
- Chicago pounced on the Astros for four runs in the first inning a day after scoring three in the first two innings of a 6-3 win.
- “Knowing that everybody is behind him, it was very special to be there today,” Spreen said.
- The first American-born pope, Leo undertook his ministry in Peru, but he was born in 1955 in the south side Chicago neighborhood of Bronzeville and grew up in suburban Dolton, near St.