Deep Dish-ciple? The First American Pope Is a Chicago Native
Pope Leo XIV appears on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to greet the faithful for the first time as the 267th Pope. pic.twitter.com/tsA1a0XSOM
— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) May 8, 2025
The Celebrity Beat…
If you didn’t hear, we got a new pope yesterday. And the internet went nuts with memes, because he’s from CHICAGO?!
Pope Leo the 14th is the first AMERICAN pope in the church’s history. There have been 267 of them. Saint Peter was the first roughly 2,000 years ago.
Pope Leo was born Robert Francis Prevost at Mercy Hospital on the South Side of Chicago in 1955. He steps into the role of pontiff at age 69 and turns 70 this September. Until now, a lot of his friends just called him “Bob.”
He grew up in the nearby suburb of Dolton near the Indiana border, and went to college at Villanova. His mom was a librarian. His dad was in the Navy and fought in World War Two.
He’s the first American pope… the first North American pope… and the first pope to come from an English-speaking country in almost 900 years.
Even though he’s from Chicago, he’s spent around two-thirds of his life in Europe and Latin America and speaks five languages: English, Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese. He can also read German and Latin. He gave his opening address in Italian yesterday. He was in Italy, so makes sense.
It’s hard to say what direction he’ll lead the Catholic Church in. But he was buddies with Pope Francis, so experts think he’ll be somewhat progressive.
If you’ve spent any time on social media in the past 24 hours, you’ve probably seen at least one pope meme. They’re everywhere right now…
American pope memes immediately took off. Chicago memes took off too.
There’s also been lots of talk about whether he’s a Cubs or White Sox fan. The Cubs tried to claim him. But his brother John crushed their hopes and dreams. He told WGN News that he and his brother grew up rooting for the Sox.
