The viral story about the Pope and his bank involves Pope Leo XIV getting hung up on by a Chicago customer service representative who assumed his call was a prank. The amusing incident went viral after being shared publicly by the Pope’s longtime friend, the Reverend Tom McCarthy.
📞 The Call
- The Verification: He initially identified himself by his birth name, Robert Prevost, and correctly answered several security questions, providing his Social Security number and formal address. [1, 2]
- The Bureaucracy: Despite answering perfectly, the representative informed him that bank policy strictly required him to complete account changes by visiting a branch in person. [1, 2]
- The Climax: The Pope explained that traveling to Chicago would be very difficult since he was now living out of town. He finally asked, “Would it matter to you if I told you I’m Pope Leo?” [1, 2]
- The Hang-Up: Believing it to be a prank call, the customer service representative immediately hung up on the leader of the Catholic Church. [1, 2]
💼 How It Was Resolved
The Pope did not let his papal authority stop him from needing to fix his banking records. He reached out to another fellow Augustinian priest in Chicago, Father Bernie Sienna, who happened to have connections to local banking executives.
Word quickly traveled up to the bank’s president. When the bank initially tried to cite standard protocol, the Pope’s intermediaries politely hinted that the Holy Father was fully prepared to move his money to a different institution. Eager to avoid losing the historic account of the first American Pope, the bank quickly bypassed the rules and updated his information manually. [1, 2]
📰 The Public Reaction
The story, heavily detailed by The New York Times and shared across networks like CNN, resonated widely with the public. Commenters and Catholic leaders praised the anecdote, noting it offered a remarkably humble, human look at a Pope dealing with the exact same automated, frustrating customer service hurdles that everyday people face.