On August 27, 2026, the Chicago White Sox confirmed something very few baseball teams can claim: their papal mitre hat officially reached the Vatican and was received by Pope Leo XIV himself. But this story didn’t start that day.
It started in May 2025, when a South Sider from Chicago became the first American pope in the history of the Catholic Church. It picked up steam on August 11, when 40,000 baseball mitres were handed out to a sold-out Rate Field. The Vatican delivery was just the latest chapter.
The Pope Who Grew Up Watching Baseball on the South Side
Pope Leo XIV was born Robert Francis Prevost on September 14, 1955, in Dolton, Illinois — just a few miles from the old White Sox ballpark. When he was elected on May 8, 2025, Chicago media scrambled to claim his sports allegiance. Some outlets put him in the Cubs camp. That was quickly corrected by someone who knows him better than anyone.
«Never, never was he a Cubs fan. I don’t know where that came from. He was always a [Chicago White] Sox fan,» said John Prevost, the Pope’s brother, in an interview with WGN News Chicago, also cited by ESPN on May 8, 2025.
The most tangible proof of that loyalty: there is video of the then-Father Prevost attending Game 1 of the 2005 World Series at Rate Field. Years later, former catcher A.J. Pierzynski gave him the ball from the final out of that same series, and Leo was later photographed wearing a White Sox cap during a general audience at the Vatican.
The Night Rate Field Became Something More Than a Ballpark
The idea was straightforward: create a papal mitre-shaped giveaway to honor Leo. The Vatican had already turned down a bobblehead proposal — too casual for pontifical protocol. The baseball mitre cleared the bar.
The concept came from Father Tom Hurley; the «sign of peace» moment built into the fifth inning was the idea of Mike Downey, the White Sox’s director of marketing. The August 11, 2026 game against the Cincinnati Reds was originally planned around a production run of 2,500 hats. Demand blew that up: the organization scaled all the way to more than 40,000 mitres distributed to a packed house.
Dominican Sister Mary Jo Sobieck threw out the first pitch. White Sox Charities presented a $14,000 check to the Midwest Province of the Order of Saint Augustine — the same religious order Leo led before becoming Pope. Father Tom McCarthy, a Chicago-born priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, was at the game and accepted the check on behalf of the Augustinians.
Weeks later, it was Father McCarthy who personally carried the hat to the Vatican and placed it in the Pope’s hands.
Why This Is More Than a Marketing Move
The hat that made it to the Vatican isn’t a generic logo cap. It’s a black-and-gold embroidered mitre featuring the White Sox’s iconic sock — a single object that blends papal symbolism with baseball merchandising in a way that needs no explanation.
Manager Will Venable captured the mood back in May 2025, when Chicago was still processing the news of the election: «It’s a proud moment for Chicago. It’s pretty cool,» he said at a pregame press conference before the White Sox’s game against the Miami Marlins on May 9, 2025, as reported by WTTW News.
The White Sox, who lead the American League Central Division as of August 2026, have turned their connection to Leo into something that goes well beyond PR. In 15 months, they went from the chaos of election-day news coverage to a Chicago priest posing with the Pontiff at the Vatican, holding a baseball mitre.
Not many teams can say that.
