EPISODE 1015: THE ONE WITH THE POPE FROM CHICAGO

Get ready world, for you are about to experience a lot of Chicago.

POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW

In the days since Chicago native and Augustinian father Robert Prevost was elected Pope Leo XIV, we’ve learned some important things.

He is a White Sox Fan.

After some initial back and forth, video surfaced of Prevost at Game 1 of the 2005 World Series, in which the White Sox swept the Houston Astros, winning their first pennant since 1917.

CBS News Chicago has since described him as “the team’s holiest fan.” And honestly, it’s just in time, because the Sox are at this point in dead last in the American League Central, a whopping 9 games behind the next team.

The Sox have already sent the pope a hat and jersey. Fittingly, they gave him #14. Most recently, #14 was worn by White Sox first baseman Paul Konerko, who led the Sox to the World Series in 2005, and wore #14 from 1999 until 2014. In 2015, the Sox retired Konerko’s number….until now.

Konerko’s walk-to-the-plate song was “Harvester of Sorrow” by Metallica. Given Pope Leo’s investment in peace and justice, maybe his should be “Prayer of the Refugee,” by Chicago group Rise Against.

If you’re looking for more on all this, Jim Margalus from Sox Machine did a fun piece on the Sox and Pope Leo.

Pope Leo is the grandson of Creole people of color.

Within hours of his election, New Orleans historian Jari C. Honora posted documents on Facebook which showed that Prevost’s maternal grandparents were both Creole people of color who lived in the Seventh Ward of New Orleans. Prevost’s grandfather was originally from the Dominican Republic, and his grandmother from New Orleans. Prevost’s older brother John confirmed Honora’s findings to the New York Times.

While John Prevost also indicated that their immediate family had never self-identified as Black or people of color, the fact that the new pope is so closely descended from Americans of color is a very interesting aspect of his background. I’m fascinated to see how that the pope eventually shares or talks about it. He certainly wouldn’t be the first person whose public life ended up taking them on an important personal journey.

Habemus Papal Bobbleheads (etc).

Yes, you can already buy bobbleheads. It’s hard to say what they’ll actually look like, as they’re just photoshopping images, but Pope with Glasses has a warm feeling to it.

There are also a million memes, ranging from the To Be Expected…

…to IFKYK…

…to a nod back to Conclave Watch’s Boyfriend, Cdl. Pizzaballa.

Not all of the memes are Chicago-based, either.

I don’t think the Cardinals understood what they were unleashing when they picked a guy from the South Side of Chicago, but they are definitely going to learn. All I can say is, nobody better cross this guy, because when it comes to their own, Chicagoans do not play.

As silly as they are, I think the memes actually reveal a lot about the character of Catholicism in Chicago. It’s grounded in family, in food, and in a broader sense of civic community. And while its roots in people’s lives go deep, they wear their faith lightly. You could literally post that funny image of Leo at the top of this newsletter in Chicago churches, and people would appreciate it immensely. Faith in Chicago isn’t about stripping things away so much as it is about appreciating the messy-tasty-funny fullness of life that God gives us.

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THE WOWND UP

Other than Pope Leo, the theme of the week seems to have been plagiarism. New York Magazine reported that many college students are not doing any schoolwork any more, because AI is there to do it for them.

While other new students fretted over the university’s rigorous core curriculum, described by the school as “intellectually expansive” and “personally transformative,” Lee used AI to breeze through with minimal effort. When I asked him why he had gone through so much trouble to get to an Ivy League university only to off-load all of the learning to a robot, he said, “It’s the best place to meet your co-founder and your wife.”

Every kind of yuck to be found here.

Gothamist also reported that another Columbia student was suspended for creating a “Cheat on Everything” app. He has since raised 53 million for the app.

Meanwhile, it turns out the mainstream press is often not doing its own work, either, but instead repackaging work from independent journalists who are barely credited for breaking the stories, if at all. (The NYT piece about Pope Leo’s Creole origins waits five paragraphs to let the reader know their entire story came from such a researcher. It would have been so easy to put it in the headline: “Researcher discovers…” To their credit they did at least reach out to the historian for further comment.)

Elsewhere, Marvel’s newest film Thunderbolts* continues to be the box office champ. And there’s a great interview with its writer about how it was originally pitched to be Marvel’s Die Hard, then evolved into its Breakfast Club. And if you ask me, it’s maybe more like its Little Miss Sunshine.

But either way, it’s delightful. Just don’t ask me to explain that asterisk. I have literally read whole stories trying to understand it, and they don’t make any sense.

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MOMENT OF WOW

The Chicago-based band Styx was a staple of my teenage years. But the group first became a phenomenon in the early 70s, right around the time Pope Leo was finishing high school.

I have no idea if he ever got into their 1977 classic “Come Sail Away,” but its story of a person setting out on a new course and promising to God that they’ll try to carry on feels right. (Also it has angels which sing to him a song of hope but then turn out to be aliens who take him away, sort of Ascension-style, which is awesome.)

So this one goes out to you, Leo. Sing that song of hope, and keep the faith.