12 May 2025, 18:15 
The election of John F. Kennedy as U.S. president in 1961, when little Robert Prevost was just six years old and growing up on the outskirts of Chicago, confirmed for the first time to American Catholics that one of their own could become the highest earthly leader in the country, after decades — centuries — of mistrust and prejudice. Now that helpful little boy from Chicago, who used to play at being a priest, has given his fellow believers another enormous boost. For the first time in history, the long-standing taboo that an American could never sit on the throne of St. Peter has been broken. Since Thursday, the former kid from the humble neighborhood of Dolton, on the outskirts of the Windy City, is Pope Leo XIV, the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.