<p>This is the text of a letter that Mayor Brandon Johnson delivered Thursday to Pope Leo XIV:</p><p><b>City of Chicago Office of the Mayor</b><br><b>Mayor Brandon Johnson</b></p><p>May 28, 2026</p><p>Your Holiness Pope Leo XIV,</p><p>October 5, 1979, is forever remembered as the most spiritually inspiring day in Chicago history. Pope John Paul I's visit to Chicago and the Holy Mass he officiated in Grant Park was an event so powerful, it drew more than a million of the faithful to share in the Gospel.</p><p>Beyond the confines of Grant Park, the Pope's visit brought families from all walks of life to their porch steps to witness his motorcade as it wound through Chicago's neighborhoods - communities built on hope, faith and hard work. Families wrote messages on bedsheets and strung them outside their windows.</p><p>In Pilsen, where the Pope addressed the crowds in Spanish, one priest recalled: <i>"What we saw when be arrived was something I won't forget.