It’s been just over a year since white smoke billowed out of the Sistine Chapel, announcing the election of a new pope. Now, a new biography looks at Pope Leo XIV’s life, his influences and his first months leading the Roman Catholic Church.

Never before has the relationship between Washington and the Vatican revolved around two Americans — specifically, a 79-year-old politician from Queens and a 70-year-old pontiff from Chicago.

It was a legal and spiritual victory for local clergy members who were given access to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Broadview on Wednesday.

Three Catholic cardinals are speaking out about some of the Trump administration’s recent foreign policy actions.

Leo said he had spoken “explicitly” with Gov. JB Pritzker and urged him to not sign the bill into law. Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich did the same, Leo told reporters as he left his country house in Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome.

A baby Jesus lays in a manger in the snow, wrapped in a silver emergency blanket with his wrists zip-tied. Mary stands nearby outside the Lake Street Church in Evanston, wearing a plastic gas mask and flanked by Roman soldiers in tactical vests labeled “ICE.”

Pope Leo XIV on Tuesday shared for the first time what he was thinking when the votes started going his way during the conclave that elected him, saying he resigned himself to the inevitable and put the rest in God’s hands.

“Leo from Chicago,” chronicles Pope Leo XIV's journey to being pope, from his time growing up in south suburban Dolton, into the priesthood and his missionary work in Peru, while also offering a look into how Chicago has shaped him.

A small crowd attended the festivities outside the modest brick house in the village of Dolton, where the former Robert Prevost grew up after he was born in 1955 in Chicago.

In recent years, Acutis has shot to near rock star-like fame among many young Catholics, generating a global following the likes of which the Catholic Church hasn’t seen in ages. Much of that popularity is thanks to a concerted campaign by the Vatican to give the next generation of faithful a relatable, modern-day role model.

Connelly, who served as Misericordia’s administrator for more than 50 years and propelled the institution into one of the nation’s most prominent communities for people with disabilities, passed away peacefully at her home Friday.

Pope Leo XIV met with members of the Vatican’s child protection advisory commission on Thursday for the first time amid questions about his past handling of clergy sex abuse cases and demands from survivors that he enact a true policy of zero tolerance for abuse across the Catholic Church.

Born in Chicago as Robert Prevost in 1955, the new pope for the past decade has held dual citizenship in the U.S. and Peru, where he spent time as a missionary and bishop.

Survivors of clergy sexual abuse amplified calls Tuesday for a global zero-tolerance policy from the new pope’s American hometown and raised questions about Leo XIV’s history of dealing with accused priests from Chicago to Australia.

Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, also gave the Augustinian pope a copy of two of St. Augustine’s most seminal works, “The City of God" and “On Christian Doctrine,” the vice president’s office said. Another gift: A Chicago Bears T-shirt with Leo’s name on it.

Chicago-born Leo officially opened his pontificate by taking his first popemobile tour through the piazza, a rite of passage that has become synonymous with the papacy’s global reach and mediatic draw.