When Laura Gonzalez watched as newly elected Pope Leo XIV spoke to the crowd at St. Peter’s Square in Rome — and to the rest of the world — she screamed with joy.
She knew him.
Gonzalez, a parishioner at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Winnetka, is from Peru. More specifically, she’s from Chiclayo, Peru, the same place where Pope Leo — then known as Father Robert Prevost — was appointed bishop by Pope Francis in late 2014.