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Massachusetts newlyweds behind Pope Leo's viral photo with White Sox hat

By
Juli McDonald
Juli McDonald
Juli McDonald is a general assignment reporter for WBZ-TV.
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Juli McDonald

/ CBS Boston

The moment Pope Leo broke Vatican protocol to put on a White Sox hat has gone viral, and the couple who gave it to him are proud Red Sox fans from Haverhill, Massachusetts.

"He was so down to earth that you really can't rationalize who you're standing with," Gary DeStefano recalled, of the surreal moment he experienced just more than 24 hours ago. 

Kelly and Gary DeStefano still feel on a cloud - after this one in a lifetime experience, the grandest of finales to their picture-perfect honeymoon. The Haverhill newlyweds, baseball-loving Boston fans, traded their team for a pretty fantastic photo op - with the most famous White Sox fan of all time: Pope Leo. 

Newlyweds meet Pope Leo

"This is exactly the way he left it," Kelly explained, of the hat adjustment. "And he proudly puts it on, and he jokes with us 'you're going to get in trouble, but I'm not!' Because we're Red Sox fans!" she exclaimed. 

Pope Leo XIV White Sox
Pope Leo XIV (C) reacts wearing a Chicago White Sox baseball team cap as he meets newly wedded couples during the weekly general audience in St Peter's Square at the Vatican on June 11, 2025. FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP via Getty Images

Kelly and Gary had always hoped their honeymoon might include a glimpse of the pope. When Pope Francis passed away about a month before their wedding they were crushed, they couldn't have dreamed the literal blessing still to come.

"Then it was the first American pope and then it was a mission. My cousin Paul Breen came to our wedding and said 'you don't know how hard it was to find these White Sox hats. They don't sell them in Massachusetts!' If we would be in the large crowd he said, 'put them on, maybe the pope would see you.' We were lucky enough to get tickets and seating for the sposi novelli and personally got to meet the pope," Kelly said. 

Home safe, with hearts full, the husband and wife say their new prized possession is going straight into a case to be passed on to their grandchildren. The highlight of their honeymoon, a memory they'll treasure always, and a beautiful beginning to their blessed marriage. 

"If one thing brings the country together it's sports. Whether we're Red Sox fans, he's a Chicago fan, by showing him that hat. He laughed. He has a difficult job. If you bring laughter into somebody's life that little bit even in his position, what more could you ask for? We're very grateful," said Gary.  

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