As a historian, I’m #teamchicago pope.
Cute interview.
Yes.
Apologies if someone mentioned this already, but Pope Leo is the first pope born after WWII. That’s crazy.
Which makes him the first Boomer Pope.
I thought it was great when he was talking about how he used to get him to go up on the roof to help with stuff, but he won’t be doing that anymore… I guess if your brother goes up on the roof and falls off and dies it’s tragedy, but if the Pope does it, it’s an international incident and comedy…
Damn… that’s… crazy…
All that, and the part about the eldest brother doing the same interviews down in FL. The way he said… it was a mix of brotherly love and reverence for both brothers.
Also: “What do you call him?” “Rob.” 
You might be hearing from me for at least a few days. We’re having a whole bunch of fun with this, in Chicago.
Of course, it’s another thing that looks different from different perspectives.
https://www.salon.com/2025/05/09/the-peoples-pope-has-eaten-a-hot-dog/
No one loves their city quite like Chicagoans do, with a swaggering loyalty that blurs civic pride into something closer to religious conviction, a hometown devotion that doubles as a perfectly seared side-eye to the coasts. That said, we don’t take ourselves too seriously — something that’s palpable, even to outsiders. Anthony Bourdain, a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker with a keen eye for the soul of a place, once called Chicago one of America’s last great “no bulls**t zones,” a place where “pomposity, pretentiousness, putting on airs of any kind, douchery and lack of a sense of humor will not get you far.”
So perhaps it’s no surprise that when the news broke of the election of Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV — the first American pope, born and raised in Chicago — the city responded first with reverence, then with a flood of food jokes. That is, after the “Blues Brothers” bits cleared the airspace. (He is a man on a mission from God, after all.)
Within hours of the white smoke billowing from the Sistine Chapel chimney, someone had photoshopped the Vatican façade to look like a Portillo’s. Another declared that the new holy water was Malört. And when I texted my far more devout brother to ask what he thought, he replied instantly: “This is a man who has eaten a hot dog. This is a man who has had deep dish pizza.”
While drafting this story, an email pinged into my inbox like divine timing. Portillo’s — yes, that Portillo’s—was launching a limited-time menu item in honor of the new pontiff.
“In the name of the gravy, the bun, and the hot giard, we introduce The Leo: a divinely seasoned Italian beef, baptized in gravy and finished with the holy trinity of peppers — sweet, hot, or a combo,” the press release read. It went on to call the sandwich “bold, unapologetically flavorful,” and “made in honor of a moment that’s historic for Portillo’s hometown.” I couldn’t stop laughing. Not because it was a little ridiculous, but because it was perfect.
