A bank employee in the U.S. hung up on Pope Leo XIV, because she believed it was a prank call.
The American-born pope was trying to change his on-file address and phone number with his Chicago bank, two months into his papacy.
Recalling the event on Wednesday’s episode of CNN’s OutFront, the pope’s brother John Prevost said Leo identified himself on the call by his birth name, Robert.
“She said, ‘OK, what’s the bank account number?’” Prevost said, referring to the bank teller.
The pope gave the bank teller his Social Security number and answered a list of security questions.
It was at that point that the teller said that the leader of the Catholic church would need to travel to the bank to finalize the process in person.
Prevost, who was presumably on the call with his sibling, tried to explain why that wasn’t going to work out given the pope’s new address was at the Vatican.
“It went on so long, I said, ‘You know, ma’am, it might be helpful for you to know you’re talking to my brother who’s in Rome right now’,” Prevost told CNN. “‘You’re speaking with the Pope.'
“She said, ‘Oh really?’ And hung up.”
The pope’s brother went on to say that the woman had believed that she was the target of a prank call, with “one of the provincials” – a local cleric – eventually going to the bank to sort out the situation.
This version of the story differs slightly from one told by the pope’s friend Father Tom McCarthy to a congregation in Naperville, Illinois, last week.
In his telling, it was the pope who identified himself to the sceptical teller.
“Would it matter to you if I told you I’m Pope Leo?” he asked, according to Father McCarthy. Either way, the end result was the same with the teller ending the call in disbelief.
The confusion precedes the pope’s meeting with U.S. secretary of state Marco Rubio at the Vatican Thursday, after a series of clashes between the pontiff and President Trump.
Earlier this week, Trump reignited his feud with Leo, claiming he was “endangering the lives of a lot of Catholics” with his views on the Iran war.
In response, without naming the president directly, the pope said: “The mission of the Church is to proclaim the Gospel, to preach peace.
“If someone wants to criticise me for proclaiming the Gospel, let them do so truthfully. For years, the Church has spoken out against all nuclear weapons, so there is no doubt on that point.”
But Rubio has insisted the meeting is not to mend fences with the church. Polling reported on Wednesday showed the majority of Americans were not impressed with Trump taking on the pope, nor his use of AI images of himself as Jesus.
“No, I mean it’s a trip we had planned from before, and obviously we had some stuff that happened,” Rubio said when asked if the trip was Washington’s attempt to smooth things over with the pope.
“There’s a lot to talk about with the Vatican,” Rubio said. “The pope is obviously the vicar of Christ, is a Roman Catholic, but he’s also the head of a nation state.
“We work with the Catholic Church on the distribution of humanitarian aid in Cuba. We share with the Catholic Church a concern about the destruction of religious liberty, the persecution of Christian minorities, and also, you know, the challenges that are being faced by Christians in Africa.”
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