Much ado was made about Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s meeting with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on May 28 and the gifts he gave to the pontiff — including a Chicago Cubs hat for the famous Chicago White Sox fan.
But tucked into the box of gifts were handwritten letters from three young sisters who are parishioners at St. Benedict the African Parish in the city’s Englewood neighborhood.
How the sisters were chosen to write letters to the pope goes back to September 2025, when the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency launched Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago.
Caridad Alexander, 9, lives in Rogers Park with her family and heard at school and in the neighborhood that some people’s parents had been detained. She also saw people on the street corners with whistles to alert others if they saw ICE agents.
It hit close to home, Caridad’s mother Adrienne Alexander said, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in September that federal agents could pull over drivers based on their skin color alone. The family had to make a plan in case Alexander Villaverde, Caridad’s father, who is of Latin American descent, was detained, even though he was born in the United States and therefore is an American citizen.
Caridad worried for those who were detained so she did what came naturally to her — she took it to prayer. Then she took it to her church community for more prayer, said Father David Jones, pastor of St. Benedict the African Parish 340 W. 66th St.
“This is typical her. She doesn’t stand down. She just came up and she said to me, ‘Are we going to pray for the people who are being detained by ICE?’ And I said, ‘If you ask, absolutely. That’s what we’re going to do.’”
The parish modified the general intercessions that day to include Caridad’s request and continued to pray for those detained.
Months later, when Jones was asked to write a letter to the pope to go with the Chicago delegation’s gifts, he thought of Caridad and her prayer request.
Alexander was surprised when Jones asked if her daughter would write a letter to Pope Leo, but her daughter was all in. Once her two younger sisters — Esperanza, 5, and Mercedes, 2 — heard the news, they wanted to write letters too.
In her letter, Caridad repeated her request that Pope Leo pray for people who are detained.
“I wrote a thanks to the pope for spreading peace around the world because I really hope that in the future, or in the present, that there can be peace,” Caridad said. “I also wrote for him for prayer for people that have been detained by ICE because that makes me really sad that people are getting taken away just because of how they look. Most of these people didn’t do anything wrong. I wanted to write a prayer for those people and hope they can get back home to their family.”
She was excited to know that a famous person was able to read her letter, she said, and someone close to Jesus, because Jesus and her church are important to Caridad.
While Alexander and her family children live in Rogers Park, they make the trek to the South Side for Mass on Sundays because it’s a place where they feel at home.
Adrienne Alexander began attending Mass at St. Benedict the African when she lived in Pilsen while she was in college because a friend was going there. That continued after she married Villaverde.
At the same time, her friend married and had children and they all ended up staying at the parish. Their children have formed strong bonds, and other children have also been born into the parish.
Like many parishes in the archdiocese, the congregation skews older. But when a group of young, married couples joined the church and began having babies, the church made space for them and their young children, Jones said.
“We started thinking and talking about what does that mean to the church? And the first thing is, at least we’ve got to put in changing tables in both restrooms so they’re there. So they arrived before the babies came,” Jones said.
“It’s really that community that keeps us coming, even though we pass a lot of churches along the way here,” Alexander said. “Father Jones really makes space for the children. There wasn’t a children’s choir and Caridad asked and now there is a choir. Same thing —she wanted to read and now they lector. They really see themselves at home at church. Their friends are at church.”
The children tell him they look forward to seeing their “church friends” each week, Jones said.
“We have a population of children who are bringing their parents to church where we’ve been used to the opposite. And they were unique like that,” he said. “If it weren’t for the community of children who have formed friendships, we might not see them every Sunday.”
The children take roles in every Mass. Their participation isn’t relegated to special family Masses once a month. That was important for Jones.
“The parish made room for them. They keep seeing how integrating the children is really creating the community. It’s not just making the kids cute,” he said.