Dalton, Illinois - The latest Roman Catholic shrine in the United States has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a finished basement that once was the home of newly elected Pope Leo XIV.
The day after the Vatican election Robert Francis Prevost, a Chicago-born cardinal who spent most of his career in Peru, pilgrims began trickling brick bungalows on East 141st Place in Suburban Dolton to see where he grew up.
Bob and Susan Castagna drove from St. John, Indiana to see the pope's hometown.
“I grew up in a house like this,” Bob Castagna, 77, a lawyer who worked at the church and originally from New York, said as he looked at the bungalow. “This filled my heart with joy.”
"It's a magnet," said Susan Castagna, 76, who said she grew up in Oregon. “We just want to go to a place that is so close to Jesus, so close to God.”
Marilyn Awong, who lives in Dolton, also described the house as a "magnet" and said the current owner even let her look inside. She said he frankly said his wife was pregnant and with a boy. She said she suggested that he consider naming his Leo.
"It's great to know that this house is in Dolton," Awong said. "This is really positive for the village."
Donna Sagna, who lives next to the house, established a speaker with solemn Italian prayer music, welcomed the pilgrims into a sacred place that has recently become Catholics in the world.
“My idea is to support people in the community to connect with God in some way,” Sagner said. She praised her prayer power because of why “I was approached by the Pope.”
Sagna and Awong said that this connection with the pope brought hope to a community fighting to overcome high crime rates.
"Even in the Pope's house, it used to be violent here. But we prayed, we prayed, it's better now. It's better now," Sagna said.
Sagner added: "I am honored to be able to make a proof. I can tell everyone about my prayer life and how great God is."
Louis Prevost, one of Leo's older brothers, watched all the unfolding dedication, told NBC News on Thursday that he was still "almost speechless".
"It's shocking that my brother was elected as a pope," he said. "We always knew he was special. We used to laugh at him for becoming the pope when he was 6."
John Prevost, another older brother of the pope, said he joked that he told his little brother to watch the movie "conference" so that he knew how to perform.
"I want to get rid of the idea of it and laugh at something because it's a great responsibility right now," he said.
Back in the 1960s, the future pope and his family attended St. Mary's St. Mary's on 137th Street, which was a busy church and school that crossed the Chicago-Longton border.
Now, here is a series of abandoned buildings – a physical reminder that the challenge for Leo is to revive a church hit by a sexual abuse scandal and has lost active worshippers in the United States
Leo was born on the southern side of Chicago, and the windy media quickly celebrated their 69-year-old local son and celebrated in Chicago.
"DA Pope" yells at the title of Chicago's Sun Age, a tabloid documented in a sprawling city of nearly 2.7 million people on Lake Michigan.
Meanwhile, Portillo's, a well-known Chicago street food supplier, has launched a new Italian beef sandwich in honor of the new pope. It is called Leo and it features “the holy trinity of peppers – butter, heat or combination.”