Chicago native Pope Leo XIV gives White Sox a rare lift

Robert Prevost took the name Pope Leo XIV after being elected Friday, May 9, 2025, becoming the first U.S.-born pope in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church. The Chicago-born missionary spent much of his career ministering in Peru before taking over the Vatican’s powerful office of bishops.

For the White Sox, the elevation of a Chicago native and Sox fan instantly became more than a Vatican milestone. It gave a struggling franchise, one that had been failing on the field and with fans, a rare feel-good storyline that linked the South Side to the center of global Catholic power.

The organization moved quickly to make the moment visible. The White Sox planned a graphic installation honoring Pope Leo XIV, then later unveiled a graphic installation tied to his World Series appearance, turning a papal election into team imagery that could hang above a ballpark concourse or a neighborhood bar. For a club that has spent too much time looking for reasons to draw people back in, the pope’s Chicago roots supplied one.

That reaction was bigger than baseball. Leo XIV’s election offered Chicago sports fans a source of hope at a time when the city’s teams have not always supplied much of it. The appeal was not just that a pope had come from Chicago, but that he came from the same civic fabric as the fans who still measure pride in neighborhood, parish and team colors.

The White Sox connection made the symbolism even sharper. A team with weak public confidence and poor results rarely gets a moment that feels bigger than its record. Leo XIV, by contrast, gave the franchise a global image of belonging, one that tied the White Sox to the Vatican through a single Chicago-born name and a fan allegiance that suddenly mattered far beyond baseball.