Paula Hambrick never imagined that in her lifetime the Catholic Church would be led by a pope from the United States, never mind her hometown of Chicago.But at a mass on Friday in her Midwestern city in honor of the newly elected Pope Leo XIV, a native son of the so-called Windy City, the 77-year-old was counting her blessings.”There’s probably three things that I would have hoped for in my life: to see the Cubs win the World Series, a woman become president and an American pope,” she told AFP, naming one of the local professional baseball teams.”I got two out of three! It’s pretty good odds, right?” said Hambrick, who like the new pope hails from the city’s southern suburbs.”It’s terrific. I’m thrilled,” she added, speaking under the wood vault of Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral.By 8 am the pews were fuller compared to one hour earlier for the first mass to celebrate the new pope, but still relatively sparse.Alejandro Mendoza, who was among the several hundred people to turn out for the service, said he had become more proud of Chicago.”I’m telling everybody that the pope is from where I’m from,” the 24-year-old said.”It feels like you know him. It’s very special, this sense of pride.”- ‘A prophetic figure’ -Maryjane Okolie, a nun who has been working in the southern suburbs of Chicago for more than a decade, said people there were “excited” and “surprised” that Robert Francis Prevost had become the 267th pope.”Everybody is talking about it,” she told AFP. She said she hoped Leo would follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, pope Francis, who gained a reputation for attending to the disadvantaged.Nate Bacon, a 61-year-old deacon who has been working in Guatemala for more than 10 years and was in town to visit his son, said he was “shocked” by the news.”At a time when the United States is in a really dominating kind of posture, to have a pope from the United States felt it had a cringe factor to it,” he said.Those concerns were assuaged when Bacon learned that Prevost had performed years of missionary service in Peru and that the new pope “was someone who built bridges and would continue the work of pope Francis.””I became enthusiastic,” Bacon told AFP.He said he hopes Leo can undo some of the “destruction” wrought by the administration of US President Donald Trump, who has adopted an aggressive anti-immigration stance since taking office this year.”I’m hoping a pope who was born in the United States could be a prophetic figure and a sign of a return to true values of justice, peace, and welcoming strangers and immigrants, and standing with those whom society has thrown away,” he added.Bishop Lawrence Sullivan, who helped lead Friday’s mass, said a return to Chicago by Leo would bring “tremendous excitement and joy.”

A US judge on Friday ordered the release of a Turkish student detained by federal agents as part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activism.Judge William Sessions said Rumeysa Ozturk, a Ph.D student at Tufts University in Massachusetts, should be released “immediately” from custody while her removal proceedings continue.Ozturk’s student visa was revoked by the State Department after she co-authored an article in the university newspaper, The Tufts Daily, criticizing the college’s handling of student anger around Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.Video of the 30-year-old Ozturk’s March 25 arrest by masked agents on a sidewalk sparked outrage online, and added to concerns about freedom of speech and respect for due process under Trump.Sessions echoed the concerns during Friday’s live-streamed custody hearing, at which Ozturk appeared remotely from a detention center in Louisiana.”Continued detention potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of individuals in this country who are not citizens,” the judge said.”Any one of them may now avoid exercising their First Amendment rights for fear of being whisked away to a detention center from their home,” he said.”Her continued detention cannot stand,” Sessions said. “The court orders the government to release Miss Ozturk from custody immediately.”The judge said he was not putting any travel restrictions on Ozturk and she was free to return to her home in Massachusetts.Ozturk is one of a number of foreign students facing deportation over their pro-Palestinian campus activities, and she still faces removal proceedings.The decision to release her from custody was welcomed by Turkey but condemned by the White House.Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc, in a post on X, called it a “positive development” and said it was “unacceptable for someone to be prosecuted because of their faith or their support for Palestine.”Stephen Miller, a senior White House official, lashed out at the decision, saying “there’s a judicial coup in this country.””Foreigners in this country do not have a right to stay in this country if they support designated terrorist organizations like Hamas,” Miller told reporters.”The secretary of state has the absolute authority… to revoke an immigration benefit or a visa and then to pursue a deportation.”- ‘Won’t stop fighting’ -Tufts University has publicly backed Ozturk, demanding her release so she can return to the school and complete her doctoral studies in child development.Jessie Rossman, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, which is among the groups representing Ozturk, welcomed her release.”For 45 days, Rumeysa has been detained in Louisiana,” Rossman said. “During that time, she has suffered regular and escalating asthma attacks.”And at the same time, the government has failed to produce any justification for her detention,” Rossman said, adding that the ACLU “won’t stop fighting until she is free for good.”Trump has targeted prestigious universities that became the epicenter of the US student protest movement sparked by Israel’s war in Gaza, stripping federal funds and directing immigration officers to deport foreign student demonstrators.Critics argue that the campaign amounts to retribution and will have a chilling effect on free speech, while its supporters insist it is necessary to restore order to campuses and protect Jewish students.