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Pope Leo XIV met with Chicago’s far-left mayor Brandon Johnson as the mayor led a Chicago delegation that included George Floyd family lawyer Antonio Romanucci in a Thursday trip to the Vatican.
Johnson gifted Pope Leo with an array of apparel from Chicago, including a Chicago Cubs hat.
Joining Johnson in the delegation were a number of political, spiritual and business leaders from Chicago, including Antonio Romanucci, according to CBS News.
Romanucci served as co-counsel to Ben Crump as attorneys for George Floyd’s family in their record lawsuit against the city of Minneapolis and Minneapolis police officers Derek Chauvin, Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng.
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Also present in the delegation were multiple city aldermen, president of the Chicago Teachers Union Stacy Davis Gates and United Airlines director Kristopher Anderson, in addition to more than 40 other leaders.
Pope Leo, a noted fan of Chicago’s other baseball team, the White Sox, refused to don the Cubs hat, joking that he was already wearing a hat, according to FOX 32 Chicago.
During the visit, Johnson also presented Pope Leo with a key to Chicago and an invitation to visit Chicago, the city in which the Pope was born and raised, FOX 32 reported.
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Johnson recounted the day — Oct. 5, 1979 — that Pope John Paul II visited Chicago and officiated Holy Mass in Chicago’s Grant Park, a day he called “the most spiritually inspiring day in Chicago history” in a letter to Pope Leo.
Johnson invited Pope Leo to officiate a Holy Mass in Grant Park again in 2027.
“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,” he wrote.
The mayor’s office also conveyed their wishes to work with the Pope on political issues, offering up a series of gifts that stressed the mayor’s political priorities.
The mayor offered Pope Leo letters from families of detained immigrants, a pin from the Southwest Community ICE Watch, a sanctuary city pin and a hat reading “Immigrants Make America Greater” from the Chicago Sister Cities International program, FOX 32 reported.
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