The day the Pope called customer service (spoiler: there was no miracle)

CHICAGO (USA) — Not even the Vicar of Christ escapes problems with customer service.

About two months after Robert Francis Prevost, a Chicago-born cardinal, became Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican, he called his bank in the United States, Father Tom McCarthy, a close friend of his, told a group of Catholics in Naperville, Illinois, last week.

The new pope identified himself as Robert Prevost and explained that he wanted to update the phone number and address registered with the bank, according to McCarthy.

He answered all security questions accurately.

Even so, the bank clerk said it wasn’t enough — he would have to go to a branch in person.

“He said, ‘Look, I’m not going to be able to do this,’” McCarthy said in a video shared on social media, describing the pope’s growing frustration as the audience erupted in laughter. “I answered all the security questions for you.”

The employee apologized. Then the pope tried to appeal.

“Would it make a difference if I said I was Pope Leo?” he asked, according to McCarthy.

She hung up.

Even leading more than 1 billion Catholics around the world and living among priceless works of art, in a luxurious setting in the Vatican, popes also end up dealing with very mundane situations — sometimes unintentionally, sometimes on purpose. In the first 24 hours of Pope Francis’ pontificate, in 2013, he made a point of paying his own hotel bill and picking up his own suitcase, in a gesture of humility aimed at the clergy.

Leo

McCarthy confirmed via email that the bank story is true. He was telling the episode to a group of Catholics while talking about his friendship with Leão, at a formative meeting aimed at men and boys at a church in Naperville.

The priest is a well-known figure among Catholics on Chicago’s South Side, is an Augustinian and a leader at St. Rita of Cascia High School. He met Leão in the 1980s, in Chicago, where they both grew up in working-class neighborhoods, both in the city and in nearby suburbs, and has visited the pope at the Vatican.

A Vatican spokesperson did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the incident with the bank.

The problem ended up being resolved thanks to the help of another priest who had contact with the bank president, McCarthy said.

It is not known what happened to the attendant who hung up on the institution’s most illustrious client.

“Can you imagine being known as the woman who hung up on the pope?” McCarthy said.