Before last week, I would have bet against an American cardinal ever being elected the new pope. I also would have never guessed the new pontiff would hail from the south suburbs.
Turns out the new pope – also known as Rev. Robert Prevost – and I have a lot in common, which I never thought I would ever write. I mean, he’s a priest and I’m a newspaperman.
But we’re both Bobs. We’re both Catholic. He’s just a few months younger than me. More importantly, he grew up in Dolton, just a few miles away from my childhood home in Calumet City.
Pope Leo has lots of connections to Chicago. He was born in Chicago. He went to theology school in Hyde Park. He was quite active at St. Rita High School.
Lots of people have come forward with stories about him, but it’s his southeast suburban roots that intrigue me.
He grew up in Dolton, which means he probably knew his way around Riverdale, South Holland and Calumet City.
Unlike a lot of people who have come forward with stories about going to school with him as a kid or who encountered him as a priest later in life, I have no personal connection to the new pope.
But we have to have done some of the same things or gone to the same places.
He was a parishioner and altar boy at St. Mary’s Church. I have family members that also went there and I stood up to a friend’s wedding there.
Perhaps he was one of the kids I smashed into while driving one of the bumper cars at Wright’s Barnyard in Lansing. The amusement park was a local landmark that attracted kids from across the south suburbs for the bumper cars, miniature golf and batting cages.
Maybe he was a baseball player and my team encountered his on a ballfield.
He apparently is a fan of Aurelio’s Pizza in Homewood, perhaps one night we both ordered a pizza cooked in the original oven?
He surely must have caught a movie at one of the local theaters. There was the Dolton Theater, the Lans Theater in Lansing, the Paramount and Parthenon in Hammond. Later, River Oaks Theaters joined the crowd. We might have stood in line at the same time waiting to buy popcorn at the snack counter.
Maybe we went swimming at the same time at Green Lake in Calumet City or checked out the critters at the Sand Ridge Nature Center in South Holland.
We might have watched the same fireworks at the annual Dolton Fire Department 4th of July carnival or watched the parade from the same curb.
We might have enjoyed a meal at the same restaurant. Perhaps at Sambo’s or Cavalinni’s. Maybe his family traveled to Cal City to enjoy bunch a lunch at Shakey’s Pizza.
He might have gone to Bargain Town (Toys-R-Us) in Cal City to buy a new bike the same day I did.
Maybe he rode his new bike to River Oaks Shopping Center like me and my buddies did all the time.
He might have joined us shooting rats down by the Little Calumet River.
Pope Leo XIV is a south suburban boy. So am I. It truly is a small world.
He’s also a Sox fan, but I won’t hold that against him.
Bob Bong is editor of the Southwest Regional Publishing