By CARLO BOFFA, EU Correspondent
POPE LEO is clearly a Know Your Customer pontiff. Two months after being chosen as Pontiff he called up his Chicago bank to update his contact details but he didn’t get the reception he expected.
The bank clerk who took Pope Leo XIV’s call clearly thought he was a prankster and even hung up on him.
“He is a very humble guy. Two months in, he calls his bank in South Chicago to change his phone number and I think his address,” according to local priest Fr Tom McCarthy.
“He gets a lady and says, ‘Yes, ma’am, I’m Robert Prevost. I’d like to change’ — and she asks all the questions and then says, ‘I am sorry, sir, it says here you have to come in person.'”
The leader of 1.4 billion Catholics explained that this would not be possible, as he can only leave Vatican City on papal visits. After a brief back and forth with the clerk, he tried one last card: “Would it matter to you if I told you I am Pope Leo?”
“She hung up on him,” Father McCarthy said. “Could you imagine being known as the woman who hung up on the Pope?”
Leo later called a priest he knew in Chicago, who managed to reach the bank’s president — who initially pushed back, defending the policy. The matter was eventually resolved, The Times reported, after the president conceded: “We don’t want to lose the account of the Pope.”
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