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.

Robert Prevost, the latest — and first American — pope was raised in the Chicago area, where his childhood home was recently for sale, but the listing was pulled the day the Vatican decided