CNA Staff, Jun 20, 2025 /
14:41 pm
The auction for the childhood home of Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, has been extended by a month and will now close on July 17, according to the auction house selling the home.
The extension comes as the village of Dolton, Illinois, continues its efforts to acquire the 1,050-square-foot home located at 212 E. 141st Place in Dolton.
Dolton village attorney Burt Odelson told CNA on June 19 that the auction has been extended because the city has not finalized negotiations with the home’s owner, Pawel Radzik, to purchase the home but expects to close the deal “very soon.”
Odelson told CNA that on the chance the deal falls through, however, the village of Dolton is still prepared to seek ownership of the house through eminent domain.
Steve Budzik, the house’s listing agent, told the Chicago Tribune this week neither the owner nor the auction house would publicly disclose the number of bids received thus far.
Meanwhile, a federal judge declined to block the village of Dolton from purchasing the house after a former Dolton city employee filed a lawsuit on Sunday.
Lavell Redmond, a former employee who is involved in a wrongful termination suit against the city, asked the judge for a temporary order to prevent the city’s purchase of the pope’s childhood home, calling the city’s actions an “endeavor with substantial cost to taxpayers with no compelling governmental necessity.”
U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland denied Redmond’s request this week, citing lack of standing.
Odelson called the suit “absurd,” saying Redmond had no right to tell the village what it can and cannot do.
Odelson acknowledged that Dolton is an “economically deprived” community, however, and said once the house has been purchased, the village will set up a nonprofit charity to help fundraise for the preservation of the house and the revitalization of the neighborhood.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to preserve what many people believe is a sacred” place, Odelson told CNA about the pope’s former home. “We need to do it right and we don’t have the funds to do it right. We have to lean on others.”
People from “all over the U.S. have already offered to help preserve the house,” Odelson said, “and the charity will enable them to do so.”
While the Archdiocese of Chicago did not respond to CNA’s requests for comment, Odelson told CNA he has been in touch with someone “high up” there who has expressed an interest in helping guide the village of Dolton in the house’s preservation.
Ward Miller of the group Preservation Chicago, a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to preserving historic sites in Chicago and encouraging landmark designations in the city, told CNA on June 20 that even though the house is outside Chicago city limits, he hopes to assist the village once it acquires the property.
Odelson said Dolton, just like the city of Chicago, has the power to declare the house a village historic site and plans to do so.
A few blocks from the house, but within Chicago city limits, is St. Mary of the Assumption, the church and school that Pope Leo attended as a child, which has been vacant since 2011 and is now privately owned.
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The property’s current owner, Joel Hall, said in May he is open to a landmark designation by the city, and Preservation Chicago presented its case to make it so at a meeting in May of the Commission of Chicago Landmarks.
While the commission has not yet come to a decision, Miller said he is confident it will do so.
He told CNA that after 11 years of advocacy led by Preservation Chicago and supported by the Archdiocese of Chicago, he was thrilled that the Chicago City Council voted to preserve another historic church, St. Adalbert’s Parish, this week.
“One can’t help but feel that the new American pope may have influenced the idea that everyone should work together to preserve these historic treasures,” Miller said.
Amira Abuzeid is a senior editor at Catholic News Agency.
