Manna, Scripture tells us, came down from heaven through the hand of God. Pizza, in turn, came to us from Naples, through New York City.
Now, God has given us a pope from Chicago who has spent much of his life in Rome. And so the long-burning conflict between different pizza styles threatens to become a full-blown schism.
Just as Chicago is America’s Second City, Chicago’s deep-dish pizza has long been the younger brother or maybe the spinoff — you could consider it the Protestantism of American pizza. That doesn’t mean it’s not delicious. It’s a pie full of meat, cheese, and tomato sauce. It’s wonderful.
But which one is supreme?
Canon law does not expound on the topic, but one of the prominent American Catholics before Pope Leo XIV did — a man with ties to New York and Chicago. “I do indeed like so-called ‘deep-dish pizza.’ It’s very tasty. But it should not be called pizza,” former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia ruled in 2011. “It should be called a tomato pie. Real pizza is Neapolitan. It is thin. It is chewy and crispy, OK?”
Scalia drew a straight line from Naples to New York and pointed a way toward pizza peace in a way that continues the spirit of the recently departed Holy Father.
“All religions are paths to God,” Pope Francis once said. This statement was easy to misinterpret, and it sounded to some critics and fans like relativism. In the realm of pizza, and the things called pizza, this ecumenicism is easier to swallow.
Neapolitan, New York, and Chicago pizza: These are all delightful when made well with good ingredients. Throw in New Haven and Detroit, too, for good measure. Cheese, tomato, crust, meat — wherever three or more of these are gathered, there, too, is deliciousness.
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Leo, then, need not be dogmatic on pizza.
Except for Saint Louis style, which deserves the ancient proclamation, anathema sit.