Chicago 5th graders champion Pope Leo XIV's mission one year into papacy

A year after a Chicago priest became Pope Leo XIV in one of history's more improbable elections, the city he left behind has not simply watched from a distance — it has responded. In classrooms across Chicago, fifth graders have taken up his mission with a seriousness that defies their age, demonstrating how genuine leadership, rooted in a real place and a real life, can send its energy radiating back to its origins. It is a quiet reminder that the most consequential transformations are rarely contained by the institutions that announce them.