Why Pope Leo Is Really a Cubs Fan . . . Even If He Doesn’t Know It

Below is a slightly expanded column in USA Today on the recent release of a Vatican photo of Pope Leo XIV wearing a White Sox hat. For Catholic Northsiders, it was the greatest challenge to the unity of the Church since Pope Leo IX faced Great Schism of 1054. While that was just between the East and West church, the North and South division in Chicago is far deeper and seemingly insurmountable. After all, we were grappling with mere ecclesiastical divisions in 1054. This is Chicago baseball. However, where there is faith, there is hope.

Here is the column:

Like many native Chicagoans, I have been struggling recently with a crisis of faith. Raised Catholic, and even attending the last high school preparatory seminary (Quigley North), I was raised to believe in the supremacy of the Chicago Cubs and the infallibility of the pope.

You did not have to have proof, you just believed.

This year, it seemed that years of unrequited faith was paying off with the Cubs on the top of the National League Central and a new pope who is not only originally from Chicago but also, according to initial reports, a Cubs fan.

The intersection of Addison and Clark had become even more holy ground as faith and baseball met inside the friendly confines.

Then, it happened. One of the most spiritually crushing photos in history: Pope Leo XIV sporting a White Sox hat.

What are the devout to do? It is a bit late for a conversion for most of us. Two decades ago, I was asked by an innocent editor to write a column on the White Sox making the World Series in 2005. After all, I was his only Chicagoan. I tried. I tried very, very hard for two days. I then called him to explain that I could not do it.

Pope Leo as a White Sox fan is a crisis of faith for Northsiders

I was raised to root for two teams: the Chicago Cubs and anyone playing the Chicago White Sox. Does that make me a horrible person? Probably, but it also makes me a Northsider.

When the Cubs went to the World Series in 2016, bars on the South Side offered free beers for every run scored by the Cleveland Indians. I respected that.

After all, as James 2:24 states, “faith without works is dead.” Indeed, a USA TODAY column later gave me credit for the Cubs winning the World Series because I broke the Billy Goat curse. (All right, I had to write that column myself, but only because my fellow columnists were petty Mets and Dodgers fans).

Back to the crisis of faith.

For Northsiders, the only thing more disconcerting would be a picture of the pope sporting a cap for The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

It is not that Northsiders are not used to disappointment. In 1962, we lost a season 59-103. We did it again in 1966. We lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1975 by a score of 0-22.  However, this was a fall from a great height after being assured that the Pope was one of our own.

It came when his brother spoke to a reporter and not only confirmed that his brother was a Southside fan, but he was also the outlier in the family. Now, comes the photo of a White Sox hat where the Papal Tiara normally rests.

To my friends back home in Chicago, I offer hope and redemption. Keep in mind that St. Dismas could overcome a life of transgressions and still be saved and canonized.

Even the pope isn’t infallible about baseball

First, we can offer our own form of papal indulgence for the pope’s baseball inclinations. Under church dogma, this is a personal, not papal, declaration.

This is no more a demonstration of infallibility than the White Sox currently sitting in last place in the American League Central.

Pope Leo’s demonstration was not a papal statement ex cathedra. Papal infallibility is recognized when he speaks by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority. In colloquial terms, it means that the pope is infallible when speaking from the “Chair of Saint Peter.” Here, the pope was speaking from his seat at the old Comiskey Park.  In other words, he can (and is) fallible when speaking about baseball.

Notably, while the basis for papal infallibility stretches far back in the church, it was formally embraced in 1870 in First Vatican Council.

That date is critical. In 1870, the Chicago Cubs were formed as a professional baseball club. However, at the time of the First Vatican Council, the team was not known as the Cubs. They were called the Chicago White Stockings.

It was not until 1903 that the name was changed to the Cubs. During the period, they were the White Stockings and dominated professional baseball.

The current White Sox weren’t even a Chicago team. They were founded in Sioux City, Iowa, and then played in Minnesota as the St. Paul Saints (which may explain the appeal to the Pope). They moved to Chicago in 1901 and adopted the name of the Chicago White Stockings. The name was later changed to the Chicago White Sox.

For a few years, two teams in Chicago were named the White Stockings.

That was an obvious problem for fans, but such duality is hardly a problem for popes. After all, Catholics believe in the trinity, not just the duality.

So one could say that Pope Leo is both a Cubs and White Sox fan as a matter of history and culture.

Now, I can almost hear readers expressing skepticism, if not contempt, at my theory. However, that is the point of faith. Indeed, Voltaire once wrote that “faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.”

I have faith − Pope Leo XIV is a Cubbie at heart.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”