Chicago Mayor Fails to Win Pope Leo XIV’s Support for Reparations

Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago is not getting any commitments from Pope Leo XIV to support reparations in their shared hometown.Mr. Johnson led a delegation of more than 40 city, business, and faith leaders to the Vatican on Thursday to meet with the pontiff as part of a three-day visit paid for by an economic development agency.The trip came days after the pontiff’s historic apology for the Holy See’s role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It was the first time a pope had publicly acknowledged the role that past popes played in granting authority for European sovereigns to enslave humans.Pope Leo included the statement on slavery in an encyclical on artificial intelligence. Encyclicals are one of the highest forms of teaching from the leader of the Roman Catholic church.Mr. Johnson told reporters ahead of the trip that he was going to thank the pope for his recognition of the harm that slavery caused. “The pulpit and the pen have to come together to deliver justice for our most vulnerable,” Mr. Johnson said. “That apology and that recognition is very much aligned with my ongoing effort to repair the harm that has been caused by slavery,” Mr. Johnson added.After meeting with the pope for about an hour, Mr. Johnson said the pope did not offer any commitment to support reparations. “We didn’t get into his position around reparations. We had a conversation about it,” Mr. Johnson said. “It went well. It was a really humbling experience for me.”The mayor also linked artificial intelligence to the legacy of slavery. “The tools that have been used to harm the most vulnerable amongst us, there’s a long reputation that this planet has, and I believe the pope is offering up a real prophetic call that advancement should be used to improve the quality of life for humanity,” Mr. Johnson said. “It should not be used as a weapon to displace humanity and certainly should not be used to divide us either.”Mr. Johnson said he had invited Pope Leo to travel home to Chicago next year to conduct Mass in Grant Park, but said it was unclear whether the pontiff would be able to schedule the visit.The mayor was continuing his Italy trip on Friday with a tour of Rome. He was set to return to Chicago on Saturday.Mr. Johnson, last year, announced he would spend $500,000 to set up a reparations task force to study and examine all “harmful” city policies and suggest a series of remedies. One of the main goals was to define and create a framework for reparations.“It is a pledge to shape the future of our city by confronting the legacy of inequity that has plagued Chicago for far too long,” Mr. Johnson said in a press release. “We are continuing to build on the bedrock of my administration to move forward in reconciliation through targeted investments aimed at rectifying decades of deliberate disinvestment in black neighborhoods and communities.”A number of American cities have toyed with reparations programs. The first one was set up in the Chicago suburb of Evanston six years ago, and has distributed more than $5 million to more than 200 black people. It ran into a cash crunch last year, however, because a key funding source — a 3 percent tax on recreational marijuana sales — has fallen short of expectations.

Chicago Mayor Fails to Win Pope Leo XIV’s Support for Reparations

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