Things have gone pretty well for the Chicago Cubs so far in 2025. Despite dropping a series to the San Francisco Giants this week, the team heads into the weekend a full three games up in the NL Central at 22-16. Kyle Tucker has been the MVP candidate who was promised, Pete Crow-Armstrong is turning into a star before our very eyes and, while the pitching staff has some lingering question marks, Chicago looks every bit the part of an NL contender.
And yet, the biggest W the Cubs have flown this year has nothing to do with any of that. It came all the way from Vatican City on Thursday afternoon, when word broke that Chicago native Robert Francis Prevost had been elected by the College of Cardinals to be the first American pope in the history of the Catholic Church.
The news shocked just about everybody, including close observers of the Vatican. An American pontiff had long been considered nothing but a pipe dream; naturally, we wanted to know everything about this man. Where did he come from? Where did he go to school? And, most importantly, was he a Cubs fan or a White Sox fan?
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Newly elected Pope Leo XIV is (probably) a Cubs fan
Provost was born and raised in Dolton, a town just outside the southern border of Chicago's city limits. You'd think that would be squarely White Sox territory, given its proximity to the South Side; Provost, who has chosen the name Pope Leo XIV, certainly grew up closer to Rate Field than Wrigley Field.
But the White Sox simply can't catch a break these days. According to multiple reports, our new pope is in fact a Cubs fan.
We've still yet to hear from the pontiff himself about where his baseball allegiances lie, but that seems pretty open and shut. Maybe Provost grew up a White Sox fan but eventually had it with the ownership of Jerry Reinsdorf and decided to switch sides.
Either way, it seems like we should all bank on a World Series run for the Cubs in 2025.