His beloved White Sox won’t be going to the playoffs again for the fourth year in a row, but that didn’t stop Pope Leo XIV from signing a baseball for a group of American seminarians visiting the Vatican this summer. Fans back in Chicago are hoping that the pope, a native of the city’s South Side, can bring some divine intervention to the team that hasn’t won a World Series since 2005 when the pontiff, then known as Robert Prevost, was in the bleachers for game 1.
MAIN: SIMONE RISOLUTI/VATICAN MEDIA VIA VATICAN POOL/GETTY IMAGES / INSET: FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES