St. Louis Catholics overjoyed to receive first pope from North America

As Cardinal Robert Prevost’s name was announced from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, seminarians at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary jumped from their seats with an explosion of cheers when they realized that a pope from North America had been chosen.

Dozens of seminary faculty and students gathered in the Father Emil Kapaun Student Center on May 8 to watch coverage of the papal announcement.

Some seminarians were in the midst of finals as Pope Leo XIV was introduced to the tens of thousands cheering in St. Peter’s Square. Seminarians later gathered in the chapel to sing the Te Deum for the new pontiff.

As Deacon Jake Rosenmeyer of the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, prepares for ordination next month, he will have both a new bishop and a new pope to remember in his prayers when he celebrates Mass. Bishop John Keehner was ordained as bishop of Sioux City just a week before Pope Leo’s announcement.

“For us as seminarians, but then as a future priest, the Holy Father is our witness,” Deacon Rosenmeyer said. “He’s our pastor, and he’s our shepherd. We all have a shepherd on the local level — our bishop — and then we have a shepherd on the universal level, and that’s the pope. We take a lot from him and learn about what it means to be a priest from his example.”

Deacon Rosenmeyer said he hopes the new pope will continue to focus on evangelization, the poor and the marginalized, and serving the needs of a global Church.

“I would like to see a new Holy Father who keeps the boat steady and keeps us moving forward in that direction of new evangelization and how we can continue spreading the word of God throughout the world in the best way possible,” he said.

Seminarian Stephen Driscoll from the Archdiocese of Omaha, Nebraska, was working for Catholic News Agency in Rome in 2013, covering Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation and Pope Francis’s election. He recalled the silence of St. Peter’s Square when Pope Francis stepped out on the balcony for the first time and how powerful it was when he asked the crowd for their prayers before he gave his own blessing.

As Driscoll finished his degree in journalism and emergency management at the University of Nebraska, he discerned a vocation to the priesthood and eventually entered Kenrick-Glennon this year.

“I hope the new pope can bring a great sense of peace and unity to a world that sometimes feels divided or polarized,” he said. “I’m hoping that he can pull people together and pull them to Jesus.”

The news of a new pope has been a uniting topic of conversation with others — and an opportunity to invite people to learn more about the Catholic faith, St. Louis seminarian Jacob Trautman said.

“One of my good friends and I have talked a lot about what process is like,” he said. “I think this is a means in which people kind of enter into the faith in some capacity. I had an evangelical friend who just texted me earlier who was just like, ‘I saw the white smoke!’ It just brings faith back in the light in a way, and that’s been a neat experience.”

Father Charles Samson, an assistant professor of biblical theology, was a student at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome in 2013 and was among the crowd in St. Peter’s Square when the white smoke signaled that Pope Francis had been elected.

“There was a rush of emotion from the crowd in excitement, because everybody knew that the Holy Spirit, that God had just moved, and the smoke kept coming out in abundance, as if to show that the Holy Spirit is still moving abundantly in the Church,” Father Samson said. “Even seeing the faces and the flags and hearing the screams of the people in the square (today), it brings me right back to the joy of the moment of the election.”

In the square in 2013, Father Samson met a couple of people who weren’t Catholic and asked him what was happening. He explained that the Church was built on the faith of the first pope, St. Peter, “and now, as a response to that faith, all of the people in the crowd are exalting and cheering with the strength of their own faith.”

Seminary president rector Father Paul Hoesing and Cardinal Glennon College vice rector Father Jason Schumer both said they were surprised that American was named and they look forward to learning more about him.

Cardinal Prevost selected his name as an apparent nod to Pope Leo XIII, who has been described as the founding father of Catholic social doctrine in modern times. The new pope was born, raised and educated in the United States, but also has had extensive missionary experience serving the Church in Peru.

“It’s a wonderful surprise,” Father Hoesing said.

Holy Infant

At Holy Infant School in Ballwin, the praise and worship rose to a deafening roar in the gym as the school community waited for the new pope to be introduced.

“There is joy in the house of the Lord! There is joy in the house of the Lord today! We won’t be quiet. We shout out your praise!”

As soon as the white smoke appeared, a little after 11 a.m., teachers quickly started rearranging schedules to head down to the gym, where the Vatican livestream was projected on a large screen on the stage. Music minister Carrie Bazjath led the students in several praise and worship songs and the Divine Mercy Chaplet, and pastor Father Edward Stanger offered a prayer.

“You have given us a new pope, a new shepherd to walk in your footsteps. We don’t know his face yet, but we already love him, because you chose him for us,” Father Stanger prayed. “…Help us here at Holy Infant to pray for him every day with small voices and big hearts, because our prayers matter. And when he blesses the world from the balcony, let him feel the love from us and from people all of the world, saying ‘we’re with you.’”

The gym fell silent as Cardinal Dominique Mamberti proclaimed “Habemus papum,” and read the name of Cardinal Robert Prevost and his chosen papal name, Leo XIV.

But it erupted into cheers again quickly, as chants of “U-S-A!” then “Viva il papa!” broke out among the students. Several students waved a large American flag from the bleachers as the first U.S.-born pope waved from the loggia.

“When I heard that he was the first American pope, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is crazy,’ because it’s the first (papal election) I get to witness,” eighth grader Bennett McCluskey said. “Especially since he’s from the Midwest, that’s really cool.”

“It was just really exciting, like: Finally, someone from here (the U.S.)!” Lucie Hurst agreed.

After a few days of rainy weather, even the skies seemed to be celebrating the new pope, eighth grader Conor Anzer said. “I looked outside when we were chanting and singing and having all that fun, and it was bright and it was beautiful,” he said. “It just felt amazing to see.”

Conor hopes the new pope will continue working to help bring about peace in the world and unite Catholics and Christians where divisions exist. “I’m really hoping that this new pope can bring peace to everything. I’m hoping he can ask for everyone prayers, and gather everyone together,” he said.

Nora Silker was in the middle of a math test when the white smoke appeared, and she and other students dropped everything to witness the new pope’s introduction. Earlier in the morning, the seventh and eighth graders went to eucharistic adoration, and the eighth-graders are preparing for confirmation on May 9, she said.

“I think it’s amazing that we got a new pope the day we had adoration and the day before confirmation,” Nora said. “I think it just sets us up for a great confirmation and to live out great lives as Catholics.”

Holy Infant students have been working on pope-related projects over the past few weeks, learning about the conclave process, how a pope chooses his name, and more. They’ve also been praying a novena for the conclave, following along with Father Mike Schmitz’s videos; the seventh-grade made “cardinal trading cards” as they researched the members of the college of cardinals.

They have been praying for all the cardinals during the conclave, but especially for Cardinal Timothy Dolan, a Holy Infant School alumnus, seventh and eighth grade religion teacher Colleen Hannegan said.

Hannegan has been impressed by how her students have embraced the excitement of the conclave, the first in their living memory — most were 1 or 2 years old when Pope Francis was elected in 2013. It was the students’ idea to spend time in eucharistic adoration that morning, she noted.

Father Jeff Fennewald, associate pastor of Holy Infant Parish, has been helping teach the middle schoolers about papal transitions and joined the school to pray and witness the new pope.

“I hope they remember the Holy Father as a paternal figure, as a fatherly figure, and so there’s a familial rejoicing,” he said. “I hope that’s what they remember — that the Holy Father is not a CEO of Catholic Incorporated, right, but rather is their father, and we should have a fatherly, paternal love for him, as he has for us.”

As they discussed who could be the next pope, Father Fennewald “basically promised (the students) that there would never be an American pope in my lifetime or theirs,” he said, so Cardinal Prevost’s election offers a good reminder to be open to surprises of the Holy Spirit.

Amid the cheering in the gym, he only caught a few words of the new pope’s first address and blessing to the people: “go together.”

“There’s such a strong community here at Holy Infant, and also these teens among each other, so that’s the call for us: to go together,” he said.

Conclave lessons

Other schools around the Archdiocese of St. Louis took the opportunity to teach Church history in real time as Catholics observed the funeral of Pope Francis, the sede vacante period, the conclave and the election of a new pope.

Valle Catholic School in Ste. Genevieve and Holy Family School in Arnold both held mock conclaves with middle school students, introducing all the players in the process and letting students experience how easy or difficult it can be to reach a two-thirds majority agreement.

Holy Family middle school religion teacher and coordinator of religious education Christine Anderson said that the mock conclave gave her students the opportunity to think more deeply about who is doing the voting, what they might be considering and how prayer is a major part of the process.

Eighth graders at Holy Family created “Wanted: A New Pope” posters, describing the qualities they would look for in the next Holy Father. Middle schoolers spiritually adopted a cardinal to pray for every day leading up to and during the conclave.

“I hope that they understand the role that we’re carrying on, the role of the successor of St. Peter, the fact that we are so rooted in tradition,” Anderson said. “We’re going through this process of how this is not like voting for a president — we’re carrying on in the footsteps of Christ and we support the Catholic Church, however it is decided, because the Holy Spirit is going to lead us.”

It’s also a reminder to her students that the Church is universal, and this global event is a chance to engage not just with Catholics but with everyone interested in the new pope.

“This is something the whole world waits for, and as Catholics, we get to embrace that,” she said. “We get to share this with everyone.”