Ellen Skerrett: The pope's mother came of age during a complex Catholic-centered Chicago
The thousands who will gather on Saturday for a Mass and celebration in honor of Pope Leo XIV at Rate Field, home of the White Sox, may regard baseball parks as sacred spaces. For good reason — they join churches and schools as places that have shaped the lives of ordinary Chicagoans, including the pope's mother.
Charles Comiskey, founder and owner of the Chicago White Sox, understood all about the power of sacred space to inspire. As a child growing up in the Jesuit parish established by the Rev. Arnold Damen, S.J., he sat with his family in pew No. 18 of Church of the Holy Family. Its ornate Gothic interior, completed according to the plans of architect John Mills Van Osdel, was built with the nickels and dimes of Irish families who were creating a place for themselves in Chicago.
At 11 years of age, Comiskey was one of the first students to enroll in St. Ignatius College, now known as St. Ignatius College Prep, in September 1870. His classical education began in the Preparatory Department, and, according to the school ledger, he stayed 'about two years off & on.' Comiskey had 'baseball fever' and was a familiar figure on the 'prairies' around Maxwell Street. But his father regarded the American game as 'a sport for town boys and loafers' and sent him to school in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and then St. Mary's in Kansas. His passion for baseball only intensified.
Pope Leo XIV's mother, Mildred Agnes Martinez, was born a year after Comiskey's 'baseball cathedral' was dedicated on July 1, 1910, at 35th Street and Shields Avenue. For her, education — not baseball — was the game, and the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or BVM, were her team. Their Chicago roots, like Comiskey's, go back all the way to Damen and Church of the Holy Family.
In 1867, Agatha Hurley, BVM, answered Damen's invitation to establish St. Aloysius Academy on Maxwell Street, a decision that had far-reaching consequences for the city of Chicago. The need was great. According to Damen, 'we have now 1,000 boys in our (elementary) school and we should have as many girls.'
One of Comiskey's contemporaries, Mary Kane, played a crucial role in the education of Pope Leo XIV's mother. Born in Carrigaholt, Ireland, just after the famine, she came to the Jesuit parish as a 10-year-old with her illiterate immigrant mother and four brothers. Kane was among the crowd who welcomed the BVMs to Chicago in August 1867, and she had the honor of carrying the sisters' altar stone to their new chapel. In 1870, Kane joined the Sisters of Charity, and as Sister Mary Isabella, she quickly rose through the ranks. Elected mother general of her order in 1919, she directed the expansion of the BVM network of grammar and high schools in Chicago and the Midwest.
Irish immigrant 'sister-builder' Kane gave Frank Lloyd Wright's draftsman, Barry Byrne, his first important commission: The Immaculata High School. Martinez's alma mater at 640 W. Irving Park Road, was a Prairie School structure of great beauty. In 1923, the Chicago Tribune described it as the 'last word in high schools.'
These Catholic sisters challenged conventions. Whereas bishops ordinarily name parishes, 361 BVMs from 20 schools voted to call their new institution 'The Immaculata' after the mother of Jesus.
In the 1920s, the BVM sisters were putting their imprint on the urban landscape with a building that matched their progressive ideas of education. At a time when social reformers were advocating domestic training for women, The Immaculata offered a four-year classical curriculum that prepared young women for college and careers as teachers in Chicago's public schools. And their commercial department ensured skills that translated into jobs in the 'front offices' of Chicago businesses and utilities. The sisters, themselves the daughters and granddaughters of immigrants, were investing in the future of their students from working-class and middle-class families.
Every day from 1924 until her graduation in 1929, the pope's mother walked through The Immaculata's entrance dominated by Alfonso Iannelli's carved Madonna. The BVMs' commitment to art, music and drama was reflected in the curriculum, and as an Immaculata student, Martinez had many opportunities to find her voice. She was likely among the 60,000 students who participated in the Mass of the Angels at Soldier Field during the Eucharistic Congress of 1926. According to one account, Immaculata students drew attention for 'the cardinal red hats' that they wore as part of their uniform.
The quintessential query 'Where did I come from?' takes on new meaning the more we understand the complex Catholic world in which the pope's mother came of age. This 'housewife' from Dolton was baptized at Holy Name Cathedral in 1912 and married there in 1949 to Louis Prevost. Growing up in that parish, Martinez experienced devotions and ritual on a grand scale, with elaborate ceremonies conducted by bishops, archbishops and cardinals. All true, but what about the influence of the 'good sisters'? After all, her aunt, Louise Martinez, was a Sister of Mercy and her aunt, Hilda Martinez, joined the BVM community.
Perhaps the question we need to be asking is: What lessons did Mildred Prevost carry from her Immaculata education that shaped her life as a librarian, as well as a wife and mother of three boys? Like so many of us, her son Robert, now Pope Leo XIV, is the beneficiary of this rich legacy of women's work.
Ellen Skerrett, a Chicago historian, is writing the history of St. Ignatius College Prep.
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