When I dropped off my high schooler at St. Augustine Academy each morning last week, a large, hand-lettered yellow sign still greeted me, propped against a stucco wall, proclaiming “Viva Il Papa!”
As exams and award ceremonies marked the end of the school year and carpools pulled out for the last time, no one wanted to take it down.
It was a reminder of a day that students, teachers, and parents will long remember as one of the happiest in our little school’s 31-year history.
On Thursday morning, May 8th, the 7th grade students in headmaster Tim Moore’s Latin class weren’t doing declensions; they were discussing what happens at a papal conclave, while keeping one eye on the “chimney watch” on his laptop.
When the class period ended, Tim had to go back to his office, taking his laptop with him.
A mere two minutes later, white smoke billowed from the iconic smokestack. The 7th grade will never let him forget it, he says, and he can’t blame them.
As Tim told it in his weekly “blue letter” to parents, as soon as the white smoke appeared, “the students, with some of the teachers, immediately grabbed the Vatican flag and ran out to the street with signs saying, ‘Habemus papam!’ They wanted to tell the world.”
Half an hour later, the entire student body watched the new pope appear and give his first Urbi et Orbi blessing.
At the news that the Church had an American pope, more than a hundred students ran back out to the street, jubilantly waving more signs, an American flag now fluttering alongside the Vatican flag.
Joyful chaos ensued. Students waved and shouted; trucks and cars honked enthusiastically as they drove by on the busy street.
“The students then ran back to the campus and spontaneously began singing—no teacher had prompted them,” Tim said, recounting that “beautiful day.”
Gathered on the playing field, they sang hymns. They sang patriotic songs. A video shared by Tim shows high schoolers and middle schoolers singing a French hymn to Mary with unselfconscious piety.
They followed that up with a rousing “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Wild cheering, applause, and dancing broke out at “Glory, Glory Hallelujah.”
“When the next pope is elected, I hope I am still here at St. Augustine Academy because I don’t think any other school partied like us,” Tim said in an email later that day. The partying ended on a very American note, with ice cream sandwiches for all.
When that morning began, very few of us knew much, if anything, about Cardinal Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV. Twelve years ago, I can remember a similar scene of tumultuous happiness at the election of Jorge Bergoglio, also an unfamiliar name.
Among the parents and staff at our little school, where students attend daily Mass and learn Latin polyphonic hymns in choir, there was a certain amount of trepidation—I lie; there was a great deal of trepidation—as we anxiously watched the papal balcony, wondering what kind of man had been chosen to fill the shoes of St. Peter.
Putting your faith at the center of your life gives you a greater emotional stake in a papal election.
But when Leo stepped out onto the balcony, anxiety suddenly took a backseat to joy that the Church was no longer sede vacante.
The uncomplicated rejoicing of our students brought home the reality of those words and the fact of Christ’s presence in His vicar on earth.
The vague unrest that had filled me for the past few weeks—welling up at the Eucharistic prayer as the priest stumbled over “We pray for our Holy Father,” and at the end of the Rosary when we could no longer pray for the pope’s intentions—resolved itself into peace, plain and simple.
Habemus papam! We have a father!
As our new pope stood on the balcony, looking out over the vast crowds in St. Peter’s square with tears in his eyes, discussion of his leanings—liberal, conservative, centrist?—was already buzzing.
But that went over the heads of a crowd of kids in Catholic school uniforms, trooping triumphantly down the sidewalk waving the gold and white, and red, white, and blue. Celebration was the order of the day.
“We don’t know what he will bring for the Church,” Tim said, “However, we do know who the pope is, and that is the successor of St. Peter—and like Peter, he holds the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. We know that Pope Leo is our leader and represents Christ as the leader of the Church here on earth. That is well worth celebrating.”
There will be days for discussion. But almost three weeks out, a large yellow sign proclaiming “Viva Il Papa!” reminds me that we’re still basking in the glow of the day when a bunch of school kids were just happy to be Catholic, and thrilled to have a Holy Father once again.
Photos provided by the Author
