In a place where civic pride is a way of life, Chicagoans need little help believing the election of Pope Leo shows their city is among God’s favorites.

Catholic Chicagoans gathered in churches, cheered from classrooms and celebrated from their homes as the historic decision was announced that a native son, Cardinal Robert Prevost, had been elected pope.

Sisters Isabel Fitzgerald, 11, Vivian Fitzgerald, 8, and Lucia Fitzgerald, 5, from Chicago, stand inside St. Mary of the Assumption Parish, where Pope Leo XIV, Robert Prevost of the United States, used to attend while growing up,