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,

The newly elected Pope Leo XIV is from Dolton, a Chicago Southeast suburb. Throughout Thursday, people all over Chicago slowly drove past the house he grew up in.