A Chicago-born cardinal walks into a conclave. The rest of the joke tells itself.
In the breathless day since Pope Leo XIV’s election as the first American pontiff, the memes, doctored images and tongue-in-cheek references have piled up deeper than Chicago's pizza and more loaded than its hot dog, seemingly irresistible to comics and commoners alike.
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Stained-glass windows depicting a dunking Michael Jordan? A change in canon law to make ketchup-topped frankfurters a sin? Cameos in “The Bear”? All of it apparently as tempting as the forbidden fruit.
“You just saw a billion jokes,” says Chad Nackers, who was raised Catholic and now presides as editor-in-chief of The Onion, the satirical site that heralded Robert Prevost's elevation with an image of the smiling pontiff encased in a poppyseed-dotted bun.
“Conclave Selects First Chicago-Style Pope,” read the headline.
The pageantry of the church and the idea of a man who acts as a voice for God, Nackers says, combine for fertile humorous ground no matter the pontiff. Having him hail from the U.S., though, and a city as distinct as Chicago, opens up a whole new world of funny.
“It's just kind of ripe for humor,” Nackers says.
“DA POPE!” blared the front of the Chicago Sun-Times on Friday, one of countless spins on the city’s unique accent, immortalized in “Saturday Night Live” sketches. No matter how Pope Leo XIV actually appears, in this realm of humor, he's a mustachioed everyman who swaps his Ts for Ds and his zucchetto for a Bears cap.
With the Second City in the spotlight, more Chicago tropes were trotted out than even the famed namesake improv troupe could dream up. The popemobile traded for the Dodge Monaco made famous in “The Blues Brothers”? Check. Twists on city-set shows and movies like “Chicago Hope,” er, “Chicago Pope”? Yup. Dreams of Portillo’s Italian beef sandwiches and the Chicago liqueur Malört taking the place of the bread and wine of communion? Yes, chef. Over and over again.
In sports-loving Chicago, city teams were spun in a swell of papal humor. Initial belief that the pope’s baseball loyalties were with the Cubs led content creator Caitlin Hendricks to muse that Leo ironically hates the Cardinals. As it turns out, though, it appears the man in white roots for the White Sox.
It didn’t stop those in Wrigleyville from eating up pope memes and feeling hometown pride. At the Sports World shop, one woman came in asking for a Cubs jersey with Pope Leo XIV’s name splayed across the back. Down the street at Wrigleyville Sports, Chad Grant said he wouldn’t hate Leo for rooting for the Sox, but that “I just feel bad, because he’s been used to losing for a little while.”
Late-night hosts, too, had a ball with an American’s ascension.
Jimmy Fallon mused of “deep-dish communion wafers” from a pope known as “Bobby Bratwurst.” Stephen Colbert, a devout Catholic who performs in a studio with nearly as much stained glass to rival St. Patrick’s Cathedral, offered patriotic “Pope-S-A” chants and mentions of “da prayers” in thick Chicago tongue.
“I’m actually surprised by how excited I am,” Jimmy Kimmel said in his first monologue after the news. “An American who grew up here, watched all the shows we watched, rooted for teams, is now in Rome at the head of the church … this must have been what it felt like when they opened the first Olive Garden.”
More will come, a cascade of Ferris Bueller jokes and asides on canonizing Mike Ditka. There will be Oprah exuberantly shouting “You get a new pope! And you get a new pope!” And more memes of the pope in a dyed-green Chicago River or atop its shiny “Cloud Gate” bean than anyone can count.
“There's just a lot of joy in the city right now,” says Ashley Lenz, a theologian in Chicago who works for the Catholic prayer app Hallow. “There’s a certain delight of seeing something sacred break into the ordinary. The idea of a pope who’s stood in line at Portillo’s or cheered on the Sox makes it all feel closer to home. It makes the papacy feel human again.”
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Associated Press writer Melina Walling contributed to this report from Chicago.
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Matt Sedensky can be reached at msedensky@ap.org and https://x.com/sedensky.