The students of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Academy, who earlier this week held a mock conclave, were overjoyed Thursday when Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected the new pope, taking the papal name Leo XIV.
The students dressed up as cardinal and Vatican Swiss Guards, transformed a school assembly room into the Sistine Chapel, and partook in all the traditions of the papal conclave. They donned scarlet cassocks, birettas and mozzettas for the occasion. They had to vote like cardinals, and think like them too.
Cardinals campaigned for each other, and frontrunners cropped up. Round after round of voting was held, with a break to snack on Goldfish crackers after round three. And then Cardinal Augustus Wilk – also known as fourth-grader Augie Wilk – was elected with two thirds of the vote and took the name Pope Augustine.
It was perhaps a bit of prescience, as just days later Cardinal Prevost, himself an Augustinian, was elected pope in Vatican City.
"We were all screaming, 'U.S.A! U.S.A!'" Wilk said of the moment the news broke. The first American pope is a big deal for these young students.
And the prospect that Pope Leo XIV may one day visit his hometown also fills them with glee.
"That'd be incredible," Wilk said. "But I think he's probably focused on 'I'm the new pope!' instead of 'I have to go visit Chicago.'"
The teachers at the school put in long hours to get every intricate detail of the mock conclave in order to give the students some core memories, and they hope these children, when they have children and grandchildren of their own, share these memories with them.
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