Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has extended a personal invitation to Pope Leo XIV, urging the pontiff to return to his native city in 2027 for a historic visit.
The invitation was delivered during a private meeting between Johnson and the Pope at the Vatican on Thursday.
In a letter handed to the pontiff, Mayor Johnson evoked the memory of Pope John Paul II’s visit to Chicago and his Mass in Grant Park on October 5, 1979, which Johnson described as “forever remembered as the most spiritually inspiring day in Chicago history.”
Johnson, who grew up as the son of a pastor, wrote, “Your Holiness, you were a young priest-in-training at the time. Perhaps you were there. Perhaps you would consider a repeat Papal visit nearly 50 years later to share your own message of hope, unity and service.’’
The mayor proposed that Pope Leo XIV celebrate Mass in Grant Park in 2027, underscoring Chicago’s status as home to one of the largest Catholic populations in the United States.
This marks at least the second official invitation for Pope Leo XIV to visit the United States, following an earlier overture from U.S. Vice President JD Vance shortly after Leo became pope last May.
Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Prevost in 1955 in Chicago’s South Side neighborhood of Bronzeville, spent his formative years in suburban Dolton, where he attended Mass and elementary school at St. Mary of the Assumption.
He later pursued theological studies at the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago in Hyde Park and taught in local Catholic schools, cementing his deep ties to the city.
Mayor Johnson gifted the pope dozens of items inspired by his hometown during the visit, including sports merch and a jar of spicy giardiniera peppers from iconic Chicago grocer and sandwich shop J.P. Graziano, local NBC affiliate WMAQ reported.
The full list of items included:
