There’s an American pope, and he’s just like us. At least, we really, really want him to be

By TED ANTHONY Associated Press WASHINGTON AP By the middle of last week it became clear that something odd was happening It was about the time that the fake video started circulating about the woman purporting to recount the situationship she d had with Robert Prevost the new American pope decades ago when he was just another guy from Chicago We d already seen Topps the baseball-card company issue a new card of Pope Leo XIV that was all over eBay We d heard about his affinity for the White Sox and seen a glimpse of him in the crowd at the World Series And in the wake of online speculation over whether he favored the Chicago beef sandwich or Chicago-style hot dogs we d seen Portillo s a local eatery name a sandwich after him a divinely seasoned Italian beef baptized in gravy and finished with the holy trinity of peppers Then there was the Instagram video featuring two guys outlining the solutions the new pontiff was a product of his upbringing The pope s a Midwesterner Bread and wine is now cheese and beer says one Retorts the other The pope s a Midwesterner Collection baskets now accept Kohl s cash Popes They re just like us The Chicago White Sox honors Pope Leo XIV on the scoreboard before a baseball tournament against the Miami Marlins Friday May in Chicago AP Photo David Banks Not exactly The former Bob Prevost is hardly just another guy from Chicago But you wouldn t know that by the burst of American fanfare surrounding the newly minted Pope Leo XIV He has been called out for his eating proclivities Jimmy Fallon deep-dish communion wafers for his sports affiliations for his lively sibling relationships and more Fake videos of him weighing in on basketball and Donald Trump in classic Midwestern techniques are proliferating Why are we so focused on making sure the supreme leader of the Roman Catholic Church is also a regular guy from the Midwest Particular of it is pride you betcha But another answer lies in Americans peculiar and complex relationship with fame and power that goes way back to the founding of the nation itself American regular guy-ism began with the nation itself When the United States became the United States in it rejected King George III the crown s taxes and the ornate accoutrements and sensibilities that surrounded royalty In its place grew democracy effectively the cult of the regular guy As the decades passed the sensibility of effete royalty from back east whether back east was England or ultimately Washington became scorned By the time Andrew Jackson s form of populism began to flourish in the s the regular guy in the rising democratic republic became a revered trope Thus the tales of Abraham Lincoln growing up in a log cabin and splitting rails just like the rest of us or at least the th-century rural American rest of us Our custom is one that is based on the rejection of monarchy and class distinctions and yet is fascinated by monarchies and those who we see as set above and apart says David Gibson director of the Center on Religion and Society at Fordham University We want these figure to look up to but also to sit down with And it has stayed that way politically and culturally right up until at present A man takes a picture of a brochure that reads A prayer of thankfulness for the balloting of Pope Leo XIV during a mass at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago Sunday May AP Photo Nam Y Huh Think about how the ideal presidential candidate has evolved from the time of say Franklin D Roosevelt an effete Easterner who favored a long cigarette holder to in current times Ronald Reagan talked in the homespun language of hearth and home Bill Clinton played a sax and answered the time-honored question of boxers or briefs George Bush now a nondrinker became a guy you d want to have a beer with Jon Stewart famously shot that down by saying I want my president to be the designated driver This down-to-Earth sensibility was evident in the press conference that American cardinals held after Leo was elevated No intense church music accompanied their entrance instead it was American Pie and Bruce Springsteen s Born in the USA foundational pillars of popular heritage with an emphasis on popular The message This is not a back east pope Popes have constantly been alien strangers says John Baick an American historian at Western New England University We like and trust that he is one of us The Midwest is the place of hard work the place of decency the place of listening the place of manners This is the person you want to sit on the other side of that diner on a Sunday morning He places Leo s ascension as a bookend to John F Kennedy s vote in a resounding signal this time globally that Catholicism is compatible with Americanism But as for the he s one of us approach that says more about the people watching Leo than about the actual pope He has done none of this himself Baick says The connections are things that we have desperately created We are so desperate for normalcy for a regular guy This guy is far more than the pope next door And yet Americans famously adored Princess Diana the people s princess People like the Kennedys and Grace Kelly before she became an actual princess were referred to as American royalty And even though we re a long way from the days of Bogie Bacall and Greta Garbo a generation into the Stars They re Just Like Us era Americans still love to put people on pedestals and bring them back down sometimes at the same time Grace Mellor prays as she holds a brochure that reads A prayer of thankfulness for the electoral contest of Pope Leo XIV during a mass at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago Sunday May AP Photo Nam Y Huh The latest iteration of this is tied to reality TV which took regular people and turned them into personalities figures commodities This country is positioned as a place where anybody can succeed It plays directly into that the regular person who succeeds on a large scale says Danielle Lindemann author of True Story What Reality TV Says About Us We re kind of obsessed with this everyday Joe who is plucked from obscurity and becomes famous In the United States that s a salient and dominant narrative says Lindemann a professor of sociology at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania We almost feel like we have relationships with these people We re getting so much personal information about him and it facilitates that sense of closeness Related Articles The US hasn t seen a human bird flu situation in months Experts are wondering why AP PHOTOS Mexican tall ship strikes Brooklyn Bridge snapping masts and killing crew members Severe weather leaves at least dead including in Kentucky Moody s strips U S executive of top credit rating citing Washington s failure to rein in debt House Republicans include a -year ban on US states regulating AI in big beautiful bill Prevost of curriculum is not your average Midwesterner His Spanish among other tongues is fluent He spent two decades in Peru where he also holds citizenship and where it must be disclosed there is footage of him humming Feliz Navidad into a microphone at a Christmas party And there s that small matter that he is now the head of a global church of billion souls So a new era begins for both the United States and the Catholic Church an age-old hierarchy and a society that demands egalitarianism or the appearance of it from the people it looks up to And at the intersection of those two principles sits Robert Prevost Pope Leo XIV an accomplished man in his own right but also an empty vessel into which broad swaths of humanity will pour their expectations be they about eternity or totally the South Side of Chicago Popes want to connect with people and the church wants that as well But the peril is that such familiarity breeds not so much contempt as disobedience Gibson says The pope is not your friend He is not going to sit down and have a beer with you he says If you think the pope is your pal will you feel betrayed when he reminds you of your religious and moral duties and chides you for failing to follow them Ted Anthony director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation for The Associated Press has been writing about American lifestyle since Associated Press religion coverage receives encouragement through the AP s collaboration with The Conversation US with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc The AP is solely responsible for this content