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.

It's not exactly a secret that Chicago Bears jokes are told 365 days a year in Wisconsin. Even on the most holiest of dates on the calendar. And there's not even a dispensation from ridicule when a native Chicagoan is suddenly chosen to be the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church.