Two months into his pontificate, a man named Robert Prevost picked up the phone from the Vatican and called his bank in South Chicago. He wanted to update the phone number on his account.

The teller asked the standard security questions, and he answered every one of them. Then her screen flagged his file: any further changes had to be made in person, at the branch, with a photo ID.

Coming in person would not be possible, he told her, in the polite tone of a man who knew the answer before he asked the question. The teller apologized.

He paused, then asked: “Would it matter to you if I told you I’m Pope Leo?”

She hung up on him.