The election of a Chicago-born cardinal as the first American pope on Thursday astonished Catholics and non-Catholics alike across the United States.

Some felt a burst of patriotic pride that a 2,000-year-old institution had chosen its new leader, Leo XIV, from a country that is about to celebrate its 250th birthday. Others hoped that an American pope might help smooth the rifts between the United States and its allies that have widened under President Trump.

“To have the first American pope is something new and something fresh,” said Alex Freeman, a 33-year-old event planner from Atlanta. Ms. Freeman was raised Baptist but attends Catholic services occasionally at a historically Black Catholic church. “It’s part of a new American narrative.”

Chicagoans, in particular, rejoiced at the news that the first American pope was a native of their city.

The Rev. William Lego, the pastor of St. Turibius Parish in Chicago, knew the new pope when they were young seminarians in Michigan. “I think my classmate just got it,” he said, sounding stunned, from his office. “They picked a good man.”

The Democratic political strategist David Axelrod, who once helped get another long-shot Chicago candidate elected to high office, sounded equally shocked. “Holy smokes!!” he wrote on social media. “An American pope! From Chicago!!”