Tag Archives: Pope Leo XIV

What votes did Pope Leo cast in local suburban political races and questions?

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Pope Leo voted in the 2026 American election cycle in suburban New Lenox, Illinois:

Photo by Sora Shimazaki on Pexels.com

Records show that the pope is registered under his baptismal name, Robert Francis Prevost, to vote in the Chicago suburb of New Lenox, where his brother John lives. The Chicago-born pontiff has cast ballots in both Republican and Democratic primaries in recent years and cast a vote in the 2024 presidential election….

The pope’s ballot is expected to include votes for the senate and governor race in Illinois, along with house of representative, state and county elections.

While there is interest in comparing the Pope’s political views versus that of the current US administration, I would be interested to know how he voted regarding local candidates and issues. As noted above, this includes voting for state and local elections. Local choices could include for county boards, forest preserves, local judges, and municipal governments. It might include local referendum issues about property tax increases for school district needs or other specific local questions. Local residents might struggle to keep up with all the local issues and all the names on signs that pop up at each election cycle, let alone someone who is living elsewhere and voting from a distance.

The shorthand the media often uses for state and national issues – it is Democrats vs. Republicans, one party wins and the other loses – do not always hold up in suburban elections. Sometimes they do; elections for county boards and school boards in the Chicago suburbs can now echo national party platforms. But sometimes they do not. There are local election slates. Or particular histories and character in communities that influence local elections. A suburban community may lean more Democratic or Republican in larger political races but the local political activity can be unique.

New Lenox, Illinois is a unique suburban community southwest of Chicago. It has grown rapidly in recent years, increasing from under 3,000 residents in 1970 to over 27,000 in 2020. The suburb is largely white with the 2020 Census finding over 87% were white alone. A 2015 promotional campaign for the community emphasized that it is “home to proud Americans.” How do leaders and residents understand their community’s character, considering past, present, and future, and how does this affect their vote?

After the election concludes, there will be data regarding races – national, state, and local – that New Lenox residents voted in. It sounds like the Pope’s votes will be part of this.

What would someone pay for the first American pope’s childhood suburban home?

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The suburban home in which Pope Leo XIV grew up is for going to auction:

Photo by Sora Shimazaki on Pexels.com

Homer Glen-based home rehabber Pawel Radzik paid $66,000 last year for the modest, three-bedroom ranch-style brick house on 141st Place, and he gave it a major overhaul, saying last week that “80% of it is new — new flooring, new cabinets, new plumbing, new electrical, new kitchen.” He then listed the home in January for $219,000 before cutting his asking price to $205,000 later that month and then to $199,900 in February…

Upon the naming of the pontiff, Radzik immediately pulled the house from the market and told Elite Street at the time that he was looking into “what is the best option for me,” regarding the home, given its newly discovered provenance and heightened prominence.

Now, Radzik and his listing agent, Steve Budzik of iCandyRealty, have teamed up with auction house Paramount, with a June 18 auction date. The house has a reserve price of $250,000, meaning that Radzik has the right to reject any offers below that amount…

What a new owner would do with the home is unclear — perhaps turning it into a shrine to the new pope, or alternately restoring it to how it might have looked when the pontiff was a boy. No one disputes that the house has no real equal, as Prevost is the first American ever to become pope, and the 141st Place house is the only home Prevost ever lived in while growing up.

Three things strike me from this news:

  1. The house looks like a typical postwar suburban house in the Chicago area: modest in size by today’s standards and was in need of overhauling. And the community it is in has changed.
  2. This house is famous because of someone who once lived there. What happens to such suburban houses? There must be many such houses in the American suburbs – even though no other ones can claim to be the home to such a religious leader – given the number of Americans who have lived in suburbs over the decades.
  3. The increase in value is striking. Even before the announcement about the Pope, the home went from a purchase price of $66,000 last year to a sales price around $200,000 this year to a set minimum of $250,000 later this year. That a significant appreciation in housing value. Does this end up as a successful house flipping project?

I will be curious to see what the home sells for as it combines an aging yet rehabbed and more valuable home in the suburbs connected to a famous religious leader.