In the days and months before he died in July 2020, Ed Schmit received comfort in phone calls from an old friend. “Father Bob,” as Schmit knew Robert Prevost, was then a Catholic bishop in Peru, but Schmit and Prevost shared a bond forged through their Southside roots, their work at St. Rita High School in Chicago — and their mutual love of the Chicago White Sox.
During those phone calls in Schmit’s final days, fighting a battle he couldn’t win against pancreatic cancer, he always told Prevost the same thing, one of Schmit’s daughters, Heidi Skokal, said Monday. And what Schmit said to Prevost was this:
“Father Bob, I know you’re going to be the next pope. I may not be here to see it, but I’ll definitely be looking down” when it happens. Skokal paused to collect herself and continued through the tears, remembering her father. “I’m sure he is” looking down, she said.
Skokal recounted the story after the White Sox unveiled a mural in honor of Prevost, now known around the world as Pope Leo XIV. The artwork is on a pillar near Section 140 at Rate Field, where in 2005 Prevost and Schmit and members of Schmit’s family cheered on the Sox during their victory against the Houston Astros in Game 1 of the World Series.
In the hours after white smoke billowed out of the Sistine Chapel on May 8, Chicagoans celebrated one of their own and basked in Prevost’s ascent to becoming the first American-born pope. Amid the memes and revelry, though, some locals began asking the important questions: Where did Prevost’s baseball loyalties lie? An erroneous report first suggested Cubs fandom.
A now-viral photograph set the record straight: There was the future Pope Leo XIV at Game 1 of the 2005 World Series, in White Sox garb, standing next to his good friend Schmit, a longtime season-ticket holder whose seats remain in the family.
“I don’t want anyone to think he’s a Cubs fan,” Schmit’s grandson, Eddie Schmit IV, said Monday, “because he’s not a Cubs fan. The Pope is a White Sox fan, and we have proved that.”
Eddie knows. He was there that night in 2005, just 5 years old, and from what he recalls, his grandfather carried him into the stadium. And now there’s the mural.
It takes up a pillar in the lower concourse down the third base line, and features Pope Leo XIV in his papal regalia, in a pose that suggests he’s offering a prayer or a blessing — an act of service these days, perhaps, for the Sox. Above his head, there’s also a photograph from the Fox broadcast of Game 1 of the 2005 World Series.
Late in that game, a camera panning the crowd captured a moment that’s now gone viral. There are two outs in the top of the ninth and Bobby Jenks is about to close out a 5-3 Sox victory — and there’s the future pope, standing alongside the elder Schmit’s son and grandson. They all look a bit nervous in the screenshot, but soon had reason to celebrate.
About a dozen members of the Schmit family attended the unveiling of the Pope Leo XIV commemoration on Monday. Skokal became emotional at the thought of her family’s connection with the man they all know as Father Bob. He’d officiated family weddings and provided blessings for newborns. He’d worked at the high school dear to them all and, yes, gone to baseball games, too.
“There’s other times I was here with Father Bob and my father,” Eddie Schmit III said, “and we enjoyed the game, you know, and had a beer or whatever and watched the game and relaxed and just talked about everyday stuff …
“Father Bob was just a natural and he’s just humble. And he’s just like us.
“He’s an everyday guy, believe it or not.”
Ask anyone in the family, though, and they’ll say the elder Ed Schmit always knew. He used to say it all the time, especially during his final days: “Father Bob, you’re going to be the next pope.” Schmit didn’t live long enough to see it happen. But he was here with the future pope that night in 2005, and shared a moment the White Sox have now preserved and honored.
And on Monday, his daughter figured he was here in his own way, looking down.