A year since Dolton learned native son Robert Francis Prevost would be the first U.S. pope, the village’s officials remain eager to celebrate Prevost and learn more about the Catholic faith while capitalizing on tourism to his childhood home at 212 E. 141st Place.
While the home remains closed to the public, the village recently began offering private tours of the humble two-story building for some reporters and religious groups, along with Prevost’s brother, John, last month.
Dolton Village Clerk Alison Key, who leads the Historic Preservation Commission working on a plan for the village to benefit from pope-related tourism, has begun adding elements to the East 141st Place house that celebrate Pope Leo XIV as well as the community he’s from.
Pope Leo XIV: What to know about Chicago-born Robert Prevost
She said when deciding what items to include, she was inspired by members of the community, including Thornton Township District 205 students who designed benches honoring the new pope, as well as Prevost himself.
The benches are in a first-floor bedroom, while a cabinet with religious items greets visitors once they walk through the house’s red front door. Inside the cabinet, items include a basilica replica donated by a church in Elgin and a plaque with a photo of the house that Key presented to Prevost on a recent trip she took with a delegation of Illinois mayors to Vatican City.
Each member of the delegation received a rosary from Prevost, and Key made sure to place hers inside the cabinet for all visitors to see.
“As we continue to collect things over the years, we will put them in this home,” Key said. “As we gather things from different people, who’ve been involved with the pope over the years.”
Key said she hopes to see the home restored with items and refurbishments that are true to the 1950s era, when Prevost grew up there. While there are traces of the home’s original state, including remnants of wallpaper under the basement stairs, much has been changed in the Prevost family’s absence.
“We’re going to try and get as close as possible to what this home looked like,” she said. “And I’m hoping that there are pictures of the pope’s bedroom, because if we don’t decorate anything else, I want to replicate the bedroom.”
Key said the village Historic Preservation Commission is waiting on state and federal approvals to ensure the house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which will open up opportunities for grant money to make larger changes. In the meantime, the village is working on a website that will eventually allow for virtual tours and setting up a nonprofit to raise funds and manage the influx of visitors.
In the months since Dolton bought the home, the village has welcomed tourists including bus tours from Chicago’s Gold Coast and religious groups who see the trip to the Illinois town as almost a pilgrimage.
On the pope’s 70th birthday, the village hosted a program and celebration outside of the home. Officials hope to make that an annual tradition, complete with a balloon release and a photo op with a Pope Leo XIV cardboard cutout.
Village attorney Burt Odelson said his Evergreen Park-based firm has agreed to provide free legal services to the nonprofit as it gets set up. He said in addition to the village-owned childhood home, the organization would aim to acquire other buildings central to Prevost’s childhood, including the former St. Mary of the Assumption parish on the Far South Side where the now pope attended school, sang in the choir and served as an altar boy.
Odelson said the village has purchased a property located near the home to create a parking lot and is looking to set up a gift shop either on the same block or in downtown Dolton.
“Our office did a lot of research on the last three popes and their childhood homes, and what the European villages did with that was really unbelievable,” Odelson said. “Pope Benedict’s home — the tourism in that town was about 2,000 a year before … now it’s 200,000 people a year. So we’ve done the research, we know what the possibilities are. And it’s probably even more for the first American.”
ostevens@chicagotribune.com
