Pope Leo’s childhood church, St. Mary of the Assumption on Chicago’s south side, is in a state of disrepair and in danger of foreclosure, but its opportunistic owner now has a new vision for the property — and is looking to raise some cash.
The old St. Mary’s parish is located in the impoverished Riverdale neighborhood and consists of a school, a rectory, a convent, an annex building and the church itself — which was built in 1957.
The church has been in peril for some time, but last week was the subject of renewed interest, as it emerged that the newly appointed pope was a regular at the church in the 1950s and 60s.
The American pontiff, now 69, was born and raised inthe south Chicago suburb of Dolton. He attended services at St. Mary’s and also went to school there.
The last Mass held at St. Mary of the Assumption was in the summer of 2011. It now lies “vacant and its furniture gone, with a hole in the roof that can be seen from the street”, according to local media. Several new images of the church’s interior show graffiti scrawled behind the altar.
It’s also embroiled in a legal battle.
The archdiocese sold the church to a real estate company that auctioned it off in 2020 to Chicago DJ/ businessman, Joe Hall — who is now accused by mortgage lender F Street Investments of defaulting on repayments.
Hall and his attorneys, Luke Wiley and Bardia Fard, did not respond to questions from The Post.
A notice of foreclosure was filed in June last year and the case is ongoing, court documents obtained by The Post reveal.
F Street’s Chief Operating Office Mike Doney said that “we have no comment at this time” in relation to the matter.
Hall recently said that he had purchased the site to house his social services nonprofit, JBlendz Enterprises.
“We originally bought it [for our] workforce education program,” Hall told The Chicago Sun Times last week.
“I teach solar energy. I teach telecommunications, and I have a DJ apprenticeship [program]. And so I needed a campus that would house all of these different programs — and we also do social services as well.”
But his vision for the place appears to have now expanded with last week’s big news.
“Life just got a whole lot different as the owner of the Catholic parish Pope Leo XIV attended here in Chicago,” Hall posted on Instagram last week.
Hall said “the church will still remain a church, but now, we will probably switch it up to making it more significant to the pope,” according to Spectrum News 1.
“It has withstood a tornado, floods and all these setbacks, but now looking at it, I see them just as blessings on top of blessings,” he told the outlet.
Hall is already in talks with congregations interested in holding services in the church, once it’s fixed up, the Chicago Sun Times reports, adding that he wants the completed campus to have a food pantry named for the pope.
Hall told the paper he believes it would cost $800,000 to $900,000 to rehabilitate the campus.
“I think with the right resources and the right people, things can be preserved,” he said. “I have no doubt in my mind.”