‘Relatable' Pope Leo XIV's popularity with U.S. sports fans may extend to a rabbi near you
Rabbi Joseph Schultz was pleased when he heard the Catholic Church had elected its first pope born in the United States. He was even happier when he learned that Pope Leo XIV was, like himself, raised in the Chicago area.
And then came the most exciting reveal of all: the new pope, born Robert Francis Prevost in 1955, is a longtime sports fan whose interests include the Chicago White Sox, Chicago Bears and the athletic program at Villanova, from which he graduated in 1977 with a bachelor of science in mathematics.
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Wait, did Schultz hear that right? The Chicago White Sox?
'My daughter was visiting us, as she does most days, and she was reading the newspaper,' said Schultz, who is 96 and lives with his wife, Bella, in a tidy, book-filled apartment at an assisted-living community in Newtonville, Mass.
The rabbi remembers the conversation this way: His daughter, Reena Schultz, said, 'Oh my goodness, Dad, the new pope is a fan of the Chicago White Sox!'
Not only did Schultz grow up a White Sox fan, but he also once had a cup of coffee as the team's batboy. He was about 14 at the time, he said, which would mean we're talking 1943 or thereabouts. Seems the regular batboy was unavailable for a couple of weeks, and teenage Joe Schultz, whose family lived on Richmond Street in the Marquette Park neighborhood of Chicago's southwest side, was recruited as a fill-in.
Schultz is fuzzy about some of the details — 'It was just for a while, and a long, long time ago,' he said — but what he does remember is that old Comiskey Park, home of the White Sox, was a special place where all the problems of the outside world went away as soon as you stepped through the turnstile.
'You got the sense that you were with family,' Schultz said. 'That's what the White Sox were to me. The players were very, very cordial and very nice, and we were nice to them.'
Added Schultz: 'I believe Pope Leo is that kind of man. This is a man who reached out to the disadvantaged people of Peru and brought them close to the church.'
While it doesn't appear Pope Leo was ever a diehard, bubble gum card-collecting White Sox fan, he did make it to Game 1 of the 2005 World Series, this during his 'Father Bob' days as a priest with the Order of Saint Augustine. Screen grabs and video from the Fox television broadcast, showing the future pope in the stands, have been circling the globe since being published by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Naturally, there's plenty of hometown pride when Schultz talks about White Sox fan Pope Leo. Think about it. Whatever your religious beliefs, wouldn't you be pleased if somebody from your old neighborhood — and with your rooting interests — grew up to be pope?
'I always viewed the pope as this untouchable person who maybe is hard to relate to,' said Katie Tantino, 44, who played on the women's basketball team at Villanova from 1999 to 2003 (as Katie Davis, before marrying) and in 2020 was inducted into the school's Varsity Club Hall of Fame. 'And in a spiritual way, maybe that's necessary because that's what you want. You want this authoritative person.
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'But now you have this person who's a little bit more relatable. You can mix the two. Before, when the pope was announced, it was exciting for a few minutes and then you kind of moved on from it. But it hasn't left. There's pride there, and an interest in wanting to learn more about him and from him.'
John Kelly, 43, a lifelong Bears fan who grew up in Chicago, put it this way: 'At least in the United States, and I can't speak for other countries, it means he might be able to resonate with more people because of his understanding of how our society is so tied into sports. Maybe his appreciation for sports is along the lines of why I think they are important. And I think sports are important for community and perseverance and shared identity.'
Added Kelly: 'For Bears fans, having a pope who understands and appreciates the cultural impact of sports can be seen as a bridge between spiritual leadership and everyday passions, reinforcing the idea that faith and daily life are interconnected.'
Vice President JD Vance gifts Pope Leo XIV a personalized Chicago Bears jersey during their meeting this morning, as a nod to the Pope's birth state.@CatholicNewsSvc pic.twitter.com/QwKYpsYIbr
— CatholicTV (@CatholicTV) May 19, 2025
Eddie Damstra, 27, a lifelong Bears-White Sox-Bulls fan who grew up just south of Chicago in Orland Park and now lives in Santa Monica, Calif., believes it 'humanizes' a pope to be a pronounced sports fan.
'And I saw a picture of him at an Aurelio's pizza place in Homewood and said to myself, 'I've been there!' ' Damstra said. 'What that tells us is that he partakes in and enjoys some of the same things we do.'
Rabbi Schultz goes so far as to state his belief that Pope Leo's familiarity with sports, along with the life lessons Schultz believes the pope learned growing up in Dolton, Ill., just south of Chicago, can help inspire him to solve some of the world's problems.
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That's a big ask (and perhaps cloaked in naivete), but Schultz points to the map and returns to their shared history: His old house in Marquette Park is 15 miles north of the small home on 141st Place in Dolton where the then-Robert Francis Prevost used to live.
'I grew up in a very racially charged area,' Schultz said. 'But then you'd go to a White Sox game, and none of the racism was there. It was an escape for those of us who had to live with that on a day-to-day basis. We could go to a White Sox game, sit in the stands and watch baseball and have a wonderful time.
'I've been giving this a lot of thought. We need a man like this pope to establish, with the aid of people of means, a United Nations office for displaced people. He has all the credentials. He has all the experience to do something like that. And he should have the aid of people of other faiths.'
'Displaced people,' as Schultz puts it, are but one challenge facing Pope Leo. He will need to address the church sexual abuse scandal, Vatican budget issues and what roles he believes women should play as the Catholic Church moves into the middle of the 21st century. The LGBTQ+ community is waiting to see if Pope Leo offers the kind of inclusive message that Pope Francis did. With all this going on, the pope's standing as a sports fan — even one with a World Series ticket stub on top of his dresser — will only go so far.
But put philosophies aside and, yes, of course, Chicagoans and Villanova folks dig the idea of having a celebrity fan who happens to be pope. The New York Knicks have Timothée Chalamet. The Boston Celtics have Donnie Wahlberg. The Los Angeles Dodgers have a cast of A-listers that goes back to Frank Sinatra hanging out with manager Leo Durocher in the clubhouse at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field. The White Sox, Bears and Villanova Wildcats now have Pope Leo XIV.
'To me, it's like (six) degrees of Kevin Bacon,' Tantino said. 'My seven degrees of the pope are not that far. Some of the people I know have met him, and he was here in the last couple of years. That's cool.'
But there's another way to look at this.
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While it's perfectly acceptable to believe Pope Leo's years of experience as a sports fan will help him build teamwork around the world, we should hope he uses sports to get away from it all now and then. Even in this age of legalized betting, a nonstop whirl of commercials encouraging everyone to overdose on beer and lots of outrage over who stands for the national anthem and who takes a knee, sporting events remain a splendid vehicle for escapism.
And Rabbi Schultz is correct about how a White Sox game, any game, can be a great way to hang out with friends and unwind for a few hours.
Is that wishful thinking? Perhaps. But it can't hurt for Pope Leo to find an occasional Sunday to kick back on the couch and watch a Bears game.
'I hope he does that,' Damstra said. 'Lord knows, they could use the help.'
(Photo courtesy of Rabbi Joseph Schultz)
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