SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
It seems like every week, there is a new main character - someone or something that the internet is obsessed with. I will say, I spend a lot less time online and understanding these things than I used to. But luckily, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producer Mia Venkat is extremely online and is here to make sure I do not miss anything. Hey, Mia.
MIA VENKAT, BYLINE: Hi, Scott.
DETROW: So what's going on? I thought weren't going to do a main character this week.
VENKAT: We weren't. The internet didn't really provide for me this week, so on Thursday, I kind of called it. But then, boom, new pope. And then, boom, pope is from Chicago.
DETROW: Pope is from Chicago.
VENKAT: So (laughter) the internet blew up, and by 3:00 p.m. I realized we did have a main character, and it had to be the city of Chicago and, more specifically, the city's reactions to Pope Leo hailing from Chicago.
DETROW: Yes. So I was in St. Peter's Square covering Pope Leo in person, but the cell service was pretty bad 'cause there were, like, 200,000 people here, and I missed a lot of these memes. Catch me up.
VENKAT: I want to say, obviously, we have been covering the serious and critical aspects of the papal election. You're in Rome. You're doing that. This is not that.
DETROW: OK.
VENKAT: I'm just here for the fun bits. So it doesn't seem to matter to the people that the pope spent most of his life outside of Chicago. The city has claimed him. As you know, our dear ALL THINGS CONSIDERED director Jonas Adams is a proud Chicagoan.
DETROW: Yes.
VENKAT: And he told me that him and his family were ecstatic, despite not even being Catholic.
JONAS ADAMS, BYLINE: Group chat's going crazy. My family's going crazy. We've already gave him a nickname, South Side Bobby. That's how we're calling him. I know he said his name is Pope Leo XIV. He's South Side Bobby XIV.
VENKAT: (Laughter).
ADAMS: This is amazing. Chicago forever.
DETROW: (Laughter).
VENKAT: So Robert Prevost, no. South Side Bobby (laughter).
DETROW: I don't know if I'll repeat South Side Bobby when we're over in the Vatican later today, but good to know.
(LAUGHTER)
VENKAT: So also my feeds have been flooded with folks celebrating the new pope and the city's culture, like this tweet from @louisjnelson. Chicago guy elected pope. No ketchup on hotdogs now canonical law.
(LAUGHTER)
VENKAT: We have this one from @OdillaNoralis. Chicago pope. Central Standard Time now God's time zone.
DETROW: Yes.
VENKAT: (Laughter) And then this one from @VitruviusGrind, asking the new pope why a loving God allowed the Dave Matthews Band Chicago River incident to happen. So I'm not going to explain that one, but if you don't know, you can look it up.
DETROW: Can I say something, Mia?
VENKAT: Yeah.
DETROW: I'm old enough that I lived that in real time on whatever the internet was at the time.
VENKAT: (Laughter).
DETROW: We know all about it.
VENKAT: Yeah. And apparently South Side Bobby does, too. So...
DETROW: Can I tell you one of the few ones that I was able to see?
VENKAT: Of course.
DETROW: It's a Midwest pope, so it's not pope, it's ope.
VENKAT: (Laughter) I also saw a lot of da pope, obviously. But classically, Scott, TikTok had a field day with this. TikTokker Maggie Winters posted a video of her as the Chicago Pope.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAGGIE WINTERS: All babies will be baptized with the water from the green river. Michael Jordan is now a saint. You have to go to church every Sunday, but you also have to, once a week, hit up a dive bar and do a Chicago handshake.
VENKAT: We have a lot to look forward to.
DETROW: I heard that Jonas, who we heard earlier, wanted to play the Chicago Bulls entrance music under our reporting the other day, and, you know...
VENKAT: Oh, don't worry. We'll definitely go out on it.
DETROW: All right, excellent.
VENKAT: (Laughter).
DETROW: That is NPR's Mia Venkat. Thank you.
VENKAT: Thank you, Scott.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT'S "SIRIUS")
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