Habemus Papam. We have a pope.
Across San Diego’s Catholic communities, people on Thursday reacted with joy and awe at what the election of Robert Prevost — the first American pope — means for their church and for the world.
Educators at San Diego’s St. Augustine High School were grinning and in tears as they spoke about the significance that the pope is a member of the Order of St. Augustine, while at the University of San Diego, people walked around the private Roman Catholic campus with a sense of excitement and traded memories of the pontiff when he had been known as Bob.
Catholics across San Diego also noted that the new leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics is multinational and multilingual, so they expect him to be attuned to the church’s global situation, much like his predecessor Pope Francis, who died April 21, had been.
“It would seem that this selection does indicate that the cardinal electors wanted to maintain continuity. This seems like somebody who shares Francis’ vision for the church and the role of the church in the world,” said Michael Lovette-Colyer, a campus vice president and faculty member in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at USD.
“He has a pastor’s heart,” said the Rev. Max Villeneuve, St. Augustine’s chaplain. “He was a missionary in Peru, so … he knows people in their suffering, and how to be a pastor, and how to reach out to them.” He also noted that the pope’s experience as a canon lawyer prepared him for what will be an incredibly difficult job.
“Being a canon lawyer, he’s not one to be pushed over or anything like that. He knows his stuff, he knows the rules inside and out, which is great.”
The pope’s election coincides with an era that is fraught with war and rising global authoritarianism. He takes the helm of a church with 53 million Catholics in the U.S. and 1.4 million in San Diego and Imperial counties, at a time when religious affiliation in the U.S. is stabilizing after years of decline.
Having an American pope will be meaningful for U.S. Catholics because this pope knows and understands the U.S., Lovette-Colyer said.
“I was just talking to somebody who referred to him previously as Bob, you know? So the pope is somebody that is known, and that knows our context. So there is a sense of excitement around that.”
Surprise, jubilation
In the sun-dappled courtyard of St. Augustine, Villeneuve spoke about his surprise at the pope’s election.
“It was one of those possibilities you knew was possible, but it also seemed impossible, right? And so until they announced the name, I really didn’t think it was going to happen,” Villeneuve said. “When I heard the name Prevost very clearly, when the deacon proclaimed it, I slapped my desk and I said, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s Prevost, that’s Prevost!’”
The news hit home for this priest, not just because Prevost is an American. In 2014, Villeneuve had lived and studied with Prevost in Chicago. Soon after, Prevost was called to Peru, Villeneuve said.
“He had just a very calm, normal demeanor. He was very much himself. What you see is what you get, with him. … He carries himself very well, and he knows himself. I think that comes from being an Augustinian. We have a life of interiority.”
Claudia Valera Newkirk, president of Balboa Park’s cultural nonprofit House of Peru, spoke of the pope’s work in Peru and what that tie means to her.
During his speech from the Vatican balcony, the pope honored the diocese of Chiclayo, a city on Peru’s northern coast.
“From the moment he mentioned his special salute to this town in northern Peru, Chiclayo, I could tell how much he loved our country,” Valera Newkirk said. “Every emotion started to come. I couldn’t stop. The tears were starting to come out.”
Valera Newkirk sees an era of a special bond between the Vatican and Peru, where nearly 80% of the population is Catholic.
“We are so proud to have this special connection now with the pope,” she said. “It was an amazing surprise for all of us.”
Local ties
Ed Hearn, the president of St. Augustine High School, said this pope will be a unifier.
“What the world is going to discover is that this man is going to build pathways in our journeys that will connect us more in unity, more in our common community, than separates us,” he said. “It’s almost like the cardinals said, we need a guy like Father Prevost who will challenge what’s going on out there with dictators, democracies, all this stuff. And just how divided we are.”
Prevost visited St. Augustine High School for its 90th anniversary, in the 2012-2013 school year, and met with students and preached in the school’s gymnasium, Hearn said.
He added that the visit is an example of this pope’s interest in listening to people far and wide — that he would make the effort to visit a school in San Diego — and of the church leader’s humility, which is a value St. Augustine championed.
Hearn also met Prevost in Lima, at a religious congress of the Order of St. Augustine.
Hearn gave a tough speech about some concerns he had and shared his perspective as an educator. And the now-pope “was sitting in the second row, very thoughtfully looking at me. I knew he was there. You know, you can feel his presence.”
After the speech, Hearn was in the cafeteria.
“All of a sudden, I felt a hand on my shoulder, and it was him,” Hearn said. “And he goes, ‘Ed, can we have lunch right now? There’s some things you kind of jarred in my head, and I want to discuss those deeper.’ And that’s what we did.”
The learned lion
Lovette-Colyer, with USD, said the pope’s new name carries “incredible significance.”
With this selection, Leo XIV is aligning himself with Leo XIII, pope in the late 1800s and early 1900s. “He is known as the person who inaugurated or kicked off the modern era of Catholic social thought,” Lovette-Colyer said. “He tried to take the reality of the world and apply the principles and the values and the truths of the gospel to that reality.”
Villeneuve, the high school chaplain, spoke of the symbolism of the lion.
“I think Leo’s going to be interesting, because lions, they don’t have to make noise, but you know they can roar. And I think there’ll be some calmness in the church compared to Francis, but I also think he’s going to be his own man. I think that’s what the cardinals saw in him.”
‘Un Americano’
The pope’s experiences in Peru and his fluency in Spanish resonated with Hispanic and Latin American communities.
“I know they’re calling him the American pope, but I really think it’s American, in the sense of The Americas,” Villeneuve said. “He bridges Peru, North America, Chicago. It’s all of us.”
The Rev. Efrain Bautista, who leads the Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Bonita, said he was celebrating the Holy Father’s selection with parishioners at home and in Rome on Thursday.
“The first text that I got from my Italian friends who were there in the square and work in the Vatican was: ‘E un Americano!’” Bautista said.
For the parishioners around him in San Diego County, Bautista said their connection with Pope Leo XIV was solidified in real time when he began speaking Spanish from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica. Bautista said no pope — including Pope Francis, from Argentina — has ever spoken Spanish during the first speech following the conclave.
“When he switched into Spanish, I’m like: ‘There you go,’” Bautista said. “‘He’s talking directly to you’ … Pope Leo XIV is an immigrant who spent the latest part of his life in Peru. I think he’s able to relate and have that exposure to not just American culture, but also Hispanic culture in a very profound way.”
Villeneuve noted that because the pope had worked outside the U.S. for so long, his American identity “wasn’t baggage for him.” He cited a line used in describing the new pope, circulating in Italy: “He’s the least American of the Americans.”
The memories immediately came to Auxiliary Bishop Felipe Pulido when he heard the name of the new pope.
In September, while attending a school for new bishops in Rome, he visited St. Peter’s Basilica with fellow Auxiliary Bishop Michael Pham. As they were about to take a photo in front of the statue of St. Peter, someone approached them and asked if he could be in the picture with them — it was Cardinal Robert Prevost.
“He came and said, ‘Can I be in your picture?’” recalled Pulido. “Because he knew that we were also from the U.S.”
Pulido considers the selection of an American a significant milestone for the Catholic Church.
“It’s huge because we have for the first time someone that knows the culture in the U.S. and somebody who can speak to people’s hearts,” he said. “I really believe that’s what we need, change people’s hearts.”
