Pope Leo was hung up on by a bank associate in South Chicago after calling to change his banking information not long after moving to the Vatican, according to a story Rev. Tom McCarthy recently recounted. The pope had identified himself as Robert Prevost and was told he would need to appear in person.
Prevost then tried to explain the problem. "I'm not going to be able to do that... Would it matter to you if I told you I'm Pope Leo?" he said, before the call ended.
McCarthy, speaking from Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church, said the exchange still drew a laugh from listeners. "Could you imagine being known as the woman who hung up on the pope?" he said.
The call came about two months after Prevost moved overseas, when he tried to update his account at the South Chicago bank. The problem was eventually fixed through a friend of the bank's president, according to McCarthy's account.
The story works because it is both absurd and ordinary: even the pope has to deal with a bank that wants him to show up in person. And in that moment, before anyone at the other end knew who was calling, Prevost was just another customer trying to change his records.
