shuttered home of Saint Mary of Assumption
north side of Leyden at 138th Street
*5/2025 update -- This is the childhood faith home of the new Pope Leo XIV (Robert Prevost.)
chicago.suntimes.com/religion/2025/05/08/cardinal-robert-...
Cardinal Robert Prevost, a missionary born in Chicago who spent his career ministering in Peru and leads the Vatican’s powerful office of bishops, was elected the first American pope in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic church.
Prevost’s rise to become an influential figure at the Vatican began in Dolton as it grew, taking in thousands of people moving from apartments in Chicago to new homes in the south suburb during the post-World War II boom.
Catholics moving there typically landed at the St. Mary of the Assumption on the far southern edge of Chicago, straddling the line with Dolton. That’s where the Prevost family — Louis, an educator, Mildred, a librarian, and their sons Louis, John and Robert — were known at bustling St. Mary’s as dedicated and devout musicians, altar boys, lectors and volunteers.
Sadly, Neis said, St. Mary’s closed as the neighborhoods around it changed and there were fewer Catholics.
“Although my siblings said, ‘We should build a shrine now.’ Maybe the church would be resurrected by the diocese.
shuttered home of Saint Mary of Assumption
north side of Leyden at 138th Street
*5/2025 update -- This is the childhood faith home of the new Pope Leo XIV (Robert Prevost.)
chicago.suntimes.com/religion/2025/05/08/cardinal-robert-...
Cardinal Robert Prevost, a missionary born in Chicago who spent his career ministering in Peru and leads the Vatican’s powerful office of bishops, was elected the first American pope in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic church.
Prevost’s rise to become an influential figure at the Vatican began in Dolton as it grew, taking in thousands of people moving from apartments in Chicago to new homes in the south suburb during the post-World War II boom.
Catholics moving there typically landed at the St. Mary of the Assumption on the far southern edge of Chicago, straddling the line with Dolton. That’s where the Prevost family — Louis, an educator, Mildred, a librarian, and their sons Louis, John and Robert — were known at bustling St. Mary’s as dedicated and devout musicians, altar boys, lectors and volunteers.
Sadly, Neis said, St. Mary’s closed as the neighborhoods around it changed and there were fewer Catholics.
“Although my siblings said, ‘We should build a shrine now.’ Maybe the church would be resurrected by the diocese.