Providence Catholic students, staff reflect on an unforgettable visit from Pope Leo XIV
NEW LENOX, Ill. — Excitement continues to run high about the new pope inside the halls of Providence Catholic High School. Pope Leo XIV has spent a lot of quality time there.
'My dad was texting me. We were in lunch, and he was like, 'We met the pope,' and I was like, 'What? That's crazy.' I just couldn't believe it,' senior Maia Allen said.
Allen and several of her classmates met Pope Leo XIV last August when he visited Providence Catholic High School for mass.
'After mass we had a brunch, and Hannah and I were able to talk to him about our experience in Peru. We went last summer on a school trip, and he spent a lot of time serving there,' senior Reagan Sincak said.
The ladies remember the formal cardinal as very kind, wise, humorous and humble.
'Usually when you think of a cardinal, you think of all the extravagant clothes they wear but at the time Prevost came to mass, he was just wearing the normal Augustinian attire,' senior Laurel Murach said. 'It showed how humble he was and didn't think of himself to be above anyone.'
He was also well-connected.
'I'll never forget he pulled out two phones from his pocket and he was like, 'This is my personal phone, and this phone is directly to the pope,'' senior Hannah Winkleman said.
While meeting then Cardinal Prevost was a first for most students, he's like family to many of the adults.
WGN's full coverage on Pope Leo XIV
'He's from Dolton and I am from Calumet City, and we went through seminary together. We kind of bonded well because we are from the same area,' Faither John Merkelis, President of Providence Catholic High School, said.
Those who know him say Pope Leo XIV is like a bridge, someone who listens to all sides and takes his time making a decision.
He's someone who the Providence Catholic High School family say will lead the Catholic Church well.
'He practices the faith and the teachings in the Church, but he has faith, and he inspires faith in people,' Paul Houston, principal of the school, said.
'I'm proud that it's someone from this area,' senior Katherine Timm said. 'I feel like the people from this area have a lot of heart and we really know how to look out for each other.'
Graduation is in about two weeks, and while it's a long shot, the seniors want leaders at the school to reach out to Pope Leo XIV to see if he will return as their graduation speaker.
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'He plays Wordle with his brother, and I'm on a team of people that play Wordle. So we made this vow that every time we post on Wordle we're going to write 'pray for Leo,'' Merkelis recounted. 'I sent him the screenshot of all our responses, and just a few days ago he emailed back and said thanks for the prayers.' Sister Dianne Bergant, a former teacher of Pope Leo XIV's at the Catholic Theological Union, where he earned his master's in divinity, said he was a good student, which she can prove because she didn't throw out her grade lists. The crowd laughed when she said his success must speak to the quality of the city's education. 'Everyone is involved. Everyone belongs to church. Everyone is a missionary in a very real sense, and that's the theology on which he grew,' she said. Robert Prevost, a missionary who became the first American to helm the Catholic Church, was born in 1955 at Mercy Hospital in the Bronzeville neighborhood, and grew up in south suburban Dolton with his parents and two brothers. He attended school and served as an altar boy at St. Mary of the Assumption parish on the Far South Side, where one classmate remembered him as the 'pride and joy of every priest and nun.' He's also a longtime White Sox fan. The pope donned a White Sox baseball cap as he met newly wedded couples in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on Wednesday, and his brief appearance during the television broadcast of Game 1 of the 2005 World Series resurfaced and went viral. 'Pope Leo defines and represents the fabric and the heartbeat of the city of Chicago,' said Brooks Boyer, the White Sox's senior vice president, who also invited him back to Rate Field to throw a ceremonial first pitch. People flooded into the stadium hours before the program began. 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