CHICLAYO, Peru — Walkiria Garcia was 14 years old when she made her confirmation in the Catholic Church, an already significant religious sacrament made even more unforgettable by the man officiating it, Robert Prevost, who decades later would become Pope Leo XIV.

A Chicago-born cardinal walks into a conclave. The rest of the joke tells itself. In the breathless day since Pope Leo XIV’s election as the first American pontiff, the memes, doctored images and tongue-in-cheek references have piled up deeper than Chicago’s pizza and more loaded than its hot dog.