WORLD — With the announcement of the election of Pope Leo XIV, Catholics around the globe were reportedly frantically googling the new pontiff to find out if he's Catholic.
Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, originally from Chicago, Illinois, became the first American to be selected to serve as pope, leading devout members of the church to quickly look up his background to find out if he was also the first Catholic to serve in the position in over a decade.
"It'll be a great change of pace if he is," said lifelong Catholic Dave Battaglia. "Throwing in some variety every now and then is fine, but it would be nice to have a Catholic guy in charge of the Catholic Church for at least a little while. I need to find out more about this Leo guy to see if he's at least been to Mass before."
If Leo XIV is, in fact, Catholic, he would return the church to its once-longstanding tradition of having popes who were Catholic. "You never know these days," said Lisa Ganapini, another devout Catholic. "You'd think that there's a decent chance that he's a member of the faith, but as we've learned in recent years, you just never know. I guess we'll find out. I hope he's, like, read the Bible or something, too."
At publishing time, progressives around the world were reportedly disappointed that the Catholic Church had once again missed the opportunity to elect the first female pope.
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