to “The parish buildings of the former St. Mary of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church are still handsome, noble-looking religious structures, even as they sit vacant and very much in need of repair.

“Normally it takes a miracle to restore and reactivate a complex of religious buildings like this. Then it turned out last week that St. Mary’s — shuttered, half-forgotten and tucked away on the farthest reaches of the city’s South Side — is the new pope’s old childhood church. Maybe not quite a miracle, but could it be next best thing?

“‘I feel blessed to be part of such a important and historic turn of events,’ said Joe Hall, who bought the campus at a 2020 auction in hopes of housing his social services nonprofit, JBlendz Enterprises, there.

“Located at 138th and Leyden Avenue, in the Riverdale neighborhood, the old St. Mary’s parish consists of a school, a rectory, a convent and an annex building. And then there’s the church itself, built in 1957. Though a midcentury building, the church wasn’t one of the Chicago Archdiocese’s many boundary-pushing modernist churches of the time.

“But the brick-and-limestone building was contemporary enough — a then-current day interpretation of a traditional Catholic church featuring a sweeping gable roof that meets at a bold, two-story limestone front entrance boasting a large, stained-glass window and a sculpture depicting the Virgin Mary.

“By 1978, 2,000 of those families attended the church, according to the two-volume book, ‘A History of the Parishes of the Archdiocese Chicago.’ Pope Leo XIV’s was one of them.

“But St. Mary’s membership had significantly dwindled by 2011, and the archdiocese closed and sold the entire parish to a real estate company that later put it up for auction. That’s where Hall stepped in.

“Hall said he hopes the papal connection can help his efforts to save and reuse the parish buildings.

“Preservation Chicago Executive Director Ward Miller agreed. He said at the upcoming May 16 meeting of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks program committee, his organization will recommend the city create a thematic landmark district that would include ‘many, if not all, of the sites and buildings associated with our new Chicago-born pope.’

“Said Miller: ‘We need to protect these buildings, communities and stories in Chicago, much like Rome [does].’

“‘I think with the right resources and the right people, things can be preserved,’ he said. ‘The church is actually in pretty solid shape. … The school’s foundation is solid. It just needs the right team. I have no doubt in my mind that we are going to preserve it as much as we can.”‘ (Bey, Chicago Sun-Times, 5/9/25)

Ward Miller has been in direct communication with owner Joe Hall to encourage Chicago Landmark Designation of St. Mary’s / St. Mary of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church from 1957, by George S. Smith at 310 E. 137th Street and St. Mary’s / St. Mary of the Assumption School from 1917 by Hermann Gaul at 305-313 E. 137th Street. Owner consent greatly accelerates the speed and ease of Chicago Landmark Designation.

Read the full story at Chicago Sun-Times

• Can Pope Leo XIV’s boyhood church — St. Mary of the Assumption — be saved? The church’s owner hopes the papal link can help efforts to save and reuse the parish buildings on the Far South Side, Lee Bey, Chicago Sun-Times, 5/9/25
• Preservationists seek landmark designation for Pope Leo XIV’s boyhood church on Far South Side, Karen Jordan, ABC 7 Chicago, 5/13/25
• Petition to Landmark Pope Leo XIV’s Childhood Church and School!
• He Grew Up in a Parish on Chicago’s South Side. Now He’s the Pope, For Chicagoans, the selection of Robert Francis Prevost was thrilling and a little stunning, Julie Bosman and Mitch Smith, New York Times, 5/8/25