Michael Naughton, director of the Center for Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas, shared some insight with the National Catholic Register on how Pope Leo XIV grew up, as Naughton is also from the Chicago area.
From the story:
In his first days as pope, Leo XIV has struck many as an unassuming man of quiet warmth and deeply rooted identity. A visit to the part of Chicago where the first American Pontiff was raised gives an idea of how he got that way.
Born Robert Francis Prevost in 1955, the new Pope hails from the South Side – a part of the Windy City that was defined in the 1950s and ’60s by unpretentiousness, hard work and tight-knit Catholic communities. ...
“All of us come from a particular place,” said Mike Naughton, 64, who grew up on the South Side a couple miles north of the Pope. “And he’s coming from a place that had a strong Catholic culture.” ...
“That’s how all of us lived, in those little houses,” said Naughton, who now directs the Center for Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. “It’s frugal, it’s humble, but no one thought they were poor.”
Naughton described the intertwining focus on family and parish life in the South Side as a sort of “double helix,” which provided a stable formation and the “DNA of a culture.” That DNA, in turn, imparted a “deep identity” to those who received it – Pope Leo XIV included.
