"It's been an unbelievable week, obviously, for all of us," said Mark Duffey, who was ordained as a deacon at St. Thomas of Villanova Parish in Palatine.

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.