Vatican City’s been a popular spot for Illinois dignitaries since Chicago native Robert Prevost ascended to the papacy last year.
Leaders from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to lawmakers to Gov. JB Pritzker have come bearing gifts for Prevost, now known as Pope Leo XIV — a Chicago-brewed “Da Pope” beer, city-sourced giardiniera, an Illini No. 14 jersey, Chicago White Sox gear and more.
Illinois State Treasurer Mike Frerichs’ gift, however, was possibly
the most on brand. He delivered the pontiff a certificate to reclaim $8.65 of his own money, a sum the successor of St. Peter had held in a now-closed PayPal account.
The money had been sitting in Illinois’ unclaimed property account, and Frerichs — the account’s administrator — has been trying to return it.
“We found this money last year after he became pope,” Frerichs told Capitol News Illinois in a phone call Thursday morning while still in Italy. “We reached out to the local archdiocese trying to get him to claim it, and it fell through the cracks.”
Plan B? “Well, let’s deliver it in person,” he said.
That opportunity came to fruition on Wednesday.
He was invited to accompany a delegation organized by the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, and he and his wife Erica decided to make it a personal trip. He was raised Lutheran, she’s Catholic.
They paid for the trip personally, he said, using no campaign or state funds.
“My wife and I came together and made it a bit of a longer trip,” he said. “But I figured when I had the opportunity to meet the pope, you would take it.”
He also gifted the pontiff a commemorative Abraham Lincoln coin from a leftover supply the treasurer’s office had minted years ago, and a book about Chicago history. Erica Frerichs brought some of her family’s rosaries for the pope to bless.
As for the $8.65, Frerichs acknowledged that it’s garnered good press. It’s an election year, and Frerichs is slated to face Max Solomon in the general election, who won the GOP nod as a write-in candidate.
But his marketing of unclaimed property is nothing new.
“We know when people hear about our unclaimed property department, when they see an example of a real person getting money, more people visit our website, and when more people visit our website, we return more money,” he said. “Part of the reason we have smashed records on unclaimed property is because of how we market it differently.”
Frerichs first became treasurer in 2015, and his office has since returned more than $2.5 billion to more than 2.5 million people. That means Pope Leo’s PayPal windfall accounts for roughly 0.00000034% of the money returned.
“Some of them are amazing,” he said of the returns of unclaimed property. “We have an $11 million return, which is the largest in U.S. history. We’ve had million-dollar returns, half million. And some for only $8.65 actually probably will be the most memorable ones of my time in office.”
Upon receipt of the certificate from Frerichs, the pope chuckled and shared a now oft-repeated anecdote about calling his bank to close an account, only to be hung up on when revealing himself to be Pope Leo.
“It’s a true, slightly modified, but true story,” the pope can be heard saying in a video of the interaction. “A bank in Illinois.”
Frerichs told CNI he “completely understood that.”
He shared an anecdote from a few years back, when he had an issue with a bank that threatened to turn a sum of money over to the state’s unclaimed property administrator.
“I said, ‘Sure, go ahead and do that,’ and they said, ‘Sir, we don’t think you understand, it’ll be more work to claim it from your state’s unclaimed property administrator than to do what we’re asking you to do,’” he said.
“And I said, ‘No, I think I understand our state’s unclaimed property pretty well, go ahead and send it. … You’ll be sending it to me, because I am the state’s unclaimed property administrator,’” he said. “And then there was a pause, and they said, ‘Let me get a manager.’”
So, what’s next for Pope Leo?
“He just has to give us an address to mail the check to,” Frerichs said.
Any Illinoisan can check to see if they have unclaimed property on the treasurer’s website, icash.illinoistreasurer.gov/.
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This story was originally published by Capitol News Illinois and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
