ROME — Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago formally requested that Pope Leo XIV consider a return visit to his hometown in 2027, proposing a Mass in Grant Park, during a private meeting with the pontiff at the Vatican.
In a missive delivered to the Pope, the mayor referenced Pope John Paul II’s 1979 pilgrimage to Chicago, when a Mass in Grant Park on October 5 was hailed as the most spiritually transformative day in the city’s history.
‘Your Holiness, as a young cleric you may have been present at that historic occasion. I humbly ask that you contemplate a return visit nearly five decades later to proclaim a renewed message of hope, unity, and service,’ Johnson wrote.
Raised as the son of a clergyman, Johnson extended the invitation for the Pope to preside over Mass in Grant Park in 2027, recalling that Chicago hosts one of the nation’s largest Catholic communities.
This marks at least the second formal invitation extended to Pope Leo XIV to travel to the United States; shortly after his election, Vice President JD Vance also extended a similar invitation in May.
Born Robert Prevost in 1955 on Chicago’s South Side in the Bronzeville neighborhood, Leo was raised in suburban Dolton, where he regularly attended Mass at St. Mary of the Assumption and completed his elementary education.
He subsequently pursued theological studies at the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago in Hyde Park and taught in several local Catholic schools.