Tired Of Bank Customer Service Reps? Even Pope Leo Was Ghosted By One Of Them

Dealing with customer service representatives can be a nightmare, especially when you are just attempting to get a minor issue sorted. While most of us have felt the frustration of hitting a wall with support reps, it turns out no one is immune, not even the Pope. Despite leading over a billion Catholics worldwide, even he has had to deal with the same customer care headaches as the rest of us.

In a now-viral video, Rev. Tom McCarthy, a longtime friend of Pope Leo XIV, mentioned the instance when the pontiff called the bank's customer service, two months into his papacy last year. Born Robert Francis Prevost in Chicago, the pope wanted to change his phone number and address, McCarthy told a gathering of Catholics in Naperville, Illinois.

After providing his social security number and answering a series of security questions, the customer service representative offered him a seemingly straightforward solution.

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir. It says here you have to come in person," the woman said, prompting the Pope to say: "Well, that's not going to, I am not going to be able to do that. Can't we change?"

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However, after pleading with the representative to no avail, Pope Leo went for the biggest card up his sleeve. "Would it matter to you if I told you I'm Pope Leo?"

As soon as the Pope revealed his identity, the customer rep hung up, seemingly believing that it was a prank call. "Could you imagine being known as the woman that hung up on the Pope?" McCarthy said, as the audience laughed.

Eventually, "one of the provincials" went to the bank and managed to sort the situation.

Before taking the Vatican's helm, Pope Leo XIV grew up in a modest Chicago suburb and served as a missionary bishop in Peru, maintaining close ties to his roots. He and McCarthy have been connected since the 1980s, sharing similar working-class backgrounds in the Chicago area.