By Matt Sedensky
A cardinal born in Chicago enters a conclave. The rest of the joke is said.
During the breathless day since the election of Pope Leo XIV as the first American pontiff, the memes, the tank images and the ironic references have stacked more deep than the chicago pizza and more loaded than its hot dog, apparently irresistible for comics and commons.
Spended stained glass windows representing a caliber Michael Jordan? A change in canon law to make Francfurters at the top of the ketchup a sin? Came up in “The Bear”? All this apparently as tempting as the fruit prohibited.
“You have just seen a billion jokes,” explains Chad Nackers, who was raised Catholic and now chairs as editor -in -chief of the onion, the satirical site which announced the elevation of Robert Prevost with an image of the smiling pontiff enclosed in a bun on Pavot.
“Conclave selects the first Chicago style pope,” read the title.
The ceremonial of the Church and the idea of a man who acts as a voice for God, says Nackers, combine for a fertile humorous terrain, regardless of the pontiff. Bring it out of the United States, however, and a city as distinct as Chicago, opens a whole new world of funny.
“It’s just a little mature for humor,” says Nackers.
“Da Pope!” Friday, the front of Chicago Sun-Totes, one of the countless towers on the unique accent of the city, immortalized in sketches “Saturday Night Live”. No matter how much Pope Leo XIV really appears, in this field of humor, he is a mustachioed man who exchanges his TS for DS and his Zucchetto for a Bears cap.
With the second city under the spotlight, more chicago tropes were trotted that even the famous homonymous improvisation troop could not imagine. Has the Popemobile exchanged against the Dodge Monaco made famous in “The Blues Brothers”? Check. Twists and turns in cities and films like “Chicago Hope”, Er, “Chicago Pope”? Yeah. Dreams of Italian beef sandwiches from Portillo and the liqueur of Chicago Malört who replaces bread and communion wine? Yes, chef. Again and again.
In Chicago, loving sports, city teams were shot in a swell of papal humor. The initial belief that the pope’s loyalty of baseball was with the Caitlin Hendricks of the content led by the Cubs to moult that Leo ironically hates the cardinals. It turns out that, however, man appears in white roots for the White Sox.
This did not prevent Wrigleyville from eating memes of the pope and feeling the pride of the hometown. In the Sports World store, a woman came to ask for a cubs jersey with the name of Pope Leo XIV flared at the back. At the bottom of the street in Wrigleyville Sports, Chad Grant said that he would not hate Leo for having enlisted for the Sox, but that “I feel bad, because he was used to losing for a little while”.
The end of evening hosts also had a bullet with an American ascent.
Jimmy Fallon has thought about “dishi dish” communion wafers “of a pope known as” Bobby Bratwurst “. Stephen Colbert, a devout Catholic that occurs in a studio with almost as many stained glass to compete with Saint-Patrick cathedral, offered “Pope-Sa” patriotic songs and “prayers” in a thick language of Chicago.
“I am actually surprised by my enthusiasm,” said Jimmy Kimmel in his first monologue after the news. “An American who grew up here, watched all the programs we watched, rooted for the teams, is now in Rome at the head of the church … This must have been what it was when they opened Olivier’s first garden.”
More will come, a cascade of Ferris Bueller jokes and following the canonization of Mike Ditka. There will be Oprah by shouting exuberant “You get a new pope! And you get a new pope!” And more memes of the Pope in a dyed chicago-green river or at the top of his brilliant “Cloud Gate” bean that anyone can count.
“There is just a lot of joy in the city at the moment,” said Ashley Lenz, a theology in Chicago who works for the application of Catholic Hallow prayer. “There is some pleasure to see something sacred entering the ordinary. The idea of a pope who made a queue at Portillo or applauded on the SOX made everything feels closer to his home. This makes papacy human again. ”
The writer Associated Press, Melina Walling, contributed to this Chicago report.
Matt Sedensky is contacted at msedensky@ap.org and https://x.com/sedensky.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
