ROME — Mayor Brandon Johnson invited Pope Leo XIV to Grant Park next year and delivered him a key to the city during their much-awaited meeting Thursday afternoon in Vatican City, where the son of a pastor and chief executive of the pope’s hometown was surely eager to play up their shared roots.

After emerging from the historic Vatican Apostolic Library where the closed door meeting took place, Johnson’s team showed the Tribune a copy of the signed correspondence inviting Leo to officiate Mass in Grant Park in 2027.

The letter remembers Pope John Paul II’s 1979 Mass in the park as “the most spiritually inspiring day in Chicago history.”

“Perhaps you would consider a repeat Papal visit nearly 50 years later to share your own message of hope, unity and service,” it reads in part.

“(Chicago) remains a place where the Church’s mission is lived each day through service to the disenfranchised, the sick and vulnerable, and those searching for belonging,” the letter reads.

Wearing a black suit adorned with a Chicago flag lapel pin, a matching tie and a beaded bracelet, Johnson exited the Vatican around 4 p.m. and plans to brief reporters at the American University of Rome in the evening. Leo also presided over a larger conference with a 46-member Chicago delegation that immediately followed.

Choose Chicago chair Guy Chipparoni said Leo made hyperlocal references to the city, asking how the Bears were doing and name-dropping specific streets such as Augusta and Fullerton. City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin also said the pope “blessed the entire city of Chicago.”

Last year’s papal election of Leo, the first American-born pontiff, was received with tectonic fanfare in Chicago, where in many stretches of the heavily Catholic city people often first ask to which parish one belongs. Even City Hall’s traditionally entrenched divisions were set aside to celebrate his local roots and tastes.

In May 2025, Robert Francis Prevost — born in Bronzeville and raised in south suburban Dolton — was chosen as the 267th pope and leader of an estimated 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide. His affinity for Aurelio’s Pizza and cheering on the White Sox, Bulls and Bears has since stirred a fresh wave of hometown pride in Chicago, particularly after President Donald Trump’s recent aspersions of the city being a “death trap” and “war zone.”

On Thursday morning, the mayor landed in Rome for the most significant international trip of his three years in office. Leo’s popularity could spruce up Johnson’s image as a political leader steeped in faith and pride for the nation’s third-largest city, even if temporarily. As Chicago’s most progressive mayor in four decades, Johnson has embraced the pope’s compassion for migrants and those living in war-torn nations.

Johnson entered the Vatican building in the afternoon after walking around St. Peter’s Square, where some tourists from Chicago recognized and snapped photos with him, per photos provided by his team. A caravan of about 20 black tinted vehicles snaked around the ivy-sheathed brick wall of the city, with members of the delegation waiting for the gates to open for them.

Ald. Jason Ervin, the mayor’s budget chair, sat in the passenger seat of a car at the front of the procession, holding a “GOD BLESS THE WEST SIDE” shirt dyed in the Vatican City flag’s papal yellow colors that he planned to present to the pope.

“I believe that if we get a blessing, ‘Hey, the West Side is the best side,’ then we gon’ take off like a bubble in water,” Ervin said, imitating a bubble rising to the surface with his hands. “I believe when the pope comes to Chicago — and I believe that he will make his way to Chicago — you’ll see a great revival in our city.”

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