President Donald Trump has formally invited Pope Leo, the first American pontiff, to visit Washington. The invitation, delivered by Vice President J.D. Vance during the Pope’s inaugural mass, comes as Pope Leo positions himself as a global peace mediator.

An Italian personal trainer has spoken of his shock after learning his client for two years had been elected to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics as Pope.

Then Leo came along. Plagued by the tempests of drugs, murder, corruption and other vices of biblical proportion for much of the past five decades, residents in this tiny burg just south of Chicago are seeing a ray of divine hope in their most famous native son,