‘DA POPE!’ Leo XIV’s Chicago roots unleash spate of holy humour

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.

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 US, though, and a city as distinct as Chicago, opens up a whole new world of funny.