Here at Busted Halo our motto is “faith shared joyfully,” and the announcement of Chicago-born Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV has been one of the most remarkable moments of shared joy in recent memory for Catholics around the world, and particularly here in the United States. Over the past week, we have all been having conversations with friends, family, and colleagues about where we were when we heard the news, and how we reacted. Shock, wonder, and joy are — more or less — the universal reactions. So, before this moment fades into the background, we wanted to collect and share some of these stories.
Friday and Monday, we will be posting reflections from Busted Halo staff and contributors that capture where we were when we heard the announcement that we had white smoke issuing from the chimney and that the man stepping out onto the balcony was from the United States. We hope that reading these stories contributes to your own joy in this wonderful moment for our Church!
This is part two of the series. For part one, click here.
I picked up my middle child from preschool, and we returned home to lunch with her younger brother and my husband. I don’t remember what we ate. A notification popped up on my husband’s phone from a local college announcing that there was a new pope!
“It must be a trick,” I said, “it’s too soon,” thinking it must have been a timely bait and switch to get a click. But my husband quickly verified and confirmed that, “¡Sí! ¡¡Salió humo blanco!! ¡¡Hay nuevo Papa!!” We jumped up and ran to open a laptop and pull up live coverage on Telemundo YouTube, crowding around the ottoman where we propped up the computer.
We waited, and we waited.
Our 5-year-old asked if it was her turn yet to watch a show. Our 2-year-old swung between playing with trains behind the couch and body slamming the laptop. I was literally on the edge of my seat.
And when the new pope came out, we were stunned. “Who did they say? Who is that?” Leo XIV!? That’s the name of our first child! Oh, how I wished our Leo was watching at home with us!
I observed that he was dressed “más elegante que Francis,” and our daughter, ever the sequin-studded diva, took this as a positive.
From his first words, tears streamed down my face. I wasn’t fully aware of how much I needed to hear a greeting of peace, to hear Francis’ name remembered una y otra vez, to hear a leader speak of unarmed love — until he did. Something bound tightly inside, loosened. Relief flowed in the form of tears. An overflow of comfort, of hope.
And when he spoke in Spanish, addressing his former diocese in Perú, my husband and I both cried.
“We might just have to hang up his picture next to the framed one of Francis,” he said.
And that was day one!
Like a good Catholic communications professional, I had the livestream of the Sistine Chapel’s chimney running all morning. Unfortunately, amidst my flurry of clicking between pre-drafting papal prayers and reading papal prognostications and trying to get any other possible work over the finish line, I tripped out of the “live” feed and — unbeknownst to me — started watching the chimney on a three-minute delay. It wasn’t until a colleague pinged me — “White smoke!” — that I realized my error. I scowled and pledged not to make the same mistake when the new pope actually appeared.
An hour or so later, we all heard those hastily translated words — “American” and “Leo” and “Chicago” and “Villanova” — and I found myself clicking frantically once more, trying to get my I’s and V’s properly ordered as I plugged Roman Numerals into the aforementioned pre-planned-prayer. I mean, if you don’t pray for the pope via hastily-assembled Instagram graphic, are you really even a Catholic? No, of course not.
That’s when my mom texted me. A dear family friend was sending her enthusiastic messages. She’d graduated from Villanova, my mom said. The same year as the pope! That’s cool, I wrote back. No, my mom insisted. She was a math major — same as the pope. There were, like, seven of them. They were in class together. And that’s when the pope’s yearbook photo showed up on my phone. Not some graphic culled from social media, but a photo quickly snapped from an old book on a friend’s shelf sent to my mom sent to me.
And I think that’s when I realized an American pope would be different. Leo isn’t this distant figure that we reach for from afar. He’s a guy who knew a lady who knows my mom. Six degrees of Leo XIV.
RELATED: Ten Quotes To Get To Know Pope Leo XIV
On Thursday, May 8, 2025, I moved out of my college dorm at Catholic University and went to lunch with my mom and my boyfriend. It was towards the tail end of our meal that my roommate texted me “WHITE SMOKE,” stopping all of us in our tracks; we didn’t expect a pope so soon. We quickly left the restaurant to duck into the lobby of my boyfriend’s apartment complex next door. We turned on the news and waited, watching the different marching bands and Swiss guards process in. While we waited, I Googled the list of Cardinal electors, and we took our best guesses as to who would be chosen. While we did this, I heard my professors in the back of my head saying, “We will never have an American pope.”
About an hour later, Cardinal Mamberti walked out on the balcony of St. Peter’s, and the crowds began to roar. His speech was, of course, fully in Latin, and with me being a theology student, I tried my best to make out what he was saying. Still with the Googled list up on my phone we heard “Cardinale Prevost,” which prompted me to quickly scroll to his name. My mom frantically asked, “Who is he??” to which I responded, “Cardinal Robert Prevost…of the United States!!!” We couldn’t believe it.
This was the very first Papal conclave where I actually knew what was going on, and for it to be an American pope, there was nothing I could do but cry. These were tears of joy, of course, as we were all a part of history at this very moment. As a small nod to my connection with the new Pontiff, he had chosen the name Leo, after Leo XIII, who is the founder of my university!
“I have to go potty,” my two-year-old announced from her place on the couch in front of the TV.
For the last hour, we had been parked in the basement: myself, my two-year-old, and my four-year-old, watching footage of flags, people, and seagulls, and waiting for the new pope to appear. We were restless and out of snacks. He must be coming soon.
Dashing out of the room, I instructed the four-year-old, “I want you to scream really loudly if anything happens while I’m gone!” I ran up two flights of stairs to grab the toddler potty from the bathroom, and then carefully carried it into the basement.
Just as I was placing it in front of the TV, the curtains opened, and Cardinal Mamberti stepped out. “Habemus papam!” he declared with the pride of a father announcing a newborn: “It’s a pope!”
Lots of questions from the kids: “What did he say? Is the pope coming? Did they pick Pope Francis?” Desperate to hear the name, I leaned toward the television as a child climbed into my lap.
“Cardinal Prevost,” the commentators said. “And he will go by Pope Leo XIV.”
An American pope? It didn’t seem real. I squeezed my daughter and held my breath as I watched something unfold that I thought I would never, ever see in my lifetime. And as Pope Leo stepped onto the balcony, so obviously aware of the gravity and joy that comes with his new role, I felt immensely grateful for the chance to witness it with my kids by my side.
Through some trick of fate or divine providence, I’ve experienced every papal announcement of my lifetime in a Jesuit school cafeteria. For Benedict XVI, I was in a dorm dining hall at Loyola Maryland. For Francis, I was sitting in the church-turned-cafeteria at my former employer with a small crowd of students who had stayed after school to watch (and some guys who were just waiting for rides).
When Leo XIV was announced, I was in our dining hall at St. Joseph’s Prep in Philadelphia, where I work as a campus minister, watching the livestream on my phone between bites. Eventually we started streaming it from the flatscreens around the hall, and students gathered to watch, anticipation buzzing through the room. The only problem: there was no audio. When Cardinal Mamberti appeared on the balcony, I jammed my phone against my ear to listen. “Robertus Franciscus [indecipherable] Prevost…”
I ran over to where other colleagues were gathered, squinting in confusion at the silent screens.
“I think they said Prevost,” I said.
Confused looks.
“I think he’s an American!”
More intensely confused looks.
“I think,” I said, doubting myself. I tried opening his Wikipedia page, but the article didn’t seem to be working. I reopened it several times. It was only on the third that I noticed the message “NOW REDIRECTS TO POPE LEO XIV.”
Well.
The news spread through the crowd and students started a “USA! USA!” chant, because of course they did. Our president made what I assumed was a joke about the pope graduating from nearby Villanova.
“Can you imagine?” I said. “They’d be as obnoxious as we were about Francis!”
Anyway, Holy Father, if you’re reading this, my dad and grandfather were Wildcats and I meant no disrespect to your illustrious alma mater.
