CINCINNATI — This nun by no means imagined her former scholar can be the following pope.
Sister Therese DelGenio of the Sisters of Notre Dame De Namur shared her reminiscences of Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Prevost, completely with WCPO 9 Information.
“Effectively, it was actually humorous,” DelGenio stated, recalling the second she heard a brand new pope was chosen. “It was my 84th birthday, and I knew the conclave was occurring, however I had no concept after I was driving this gentleman to Social Safety, that the white smoke had appeared and that the choice had already been made.”
For DelGenio, the election of the 267th pope, Pope Leo XIV, is a divine act of God’s will.
“The week earlier than, his greatest pal (Father John) and I emailed him in help of his grief within the lack of Pope Francis, who was a colleague and a mentor and a pal,” DelGenio stated. “And Father John stated, ‘Effectively, the way you doing with all of the strain of the conclave starting?’ and Bob’s response, ‘Effectively, there simply isn’t an opportunity that anyone from Chicago goes to be chosen.'”
DelGenio taught Robert Francis Prevost 40 years in the past on the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, the place he was getting ready for ministry and ordination in his early twenties.
Watch Sister DelGenio mirror on Pope Leo XIV as a scholar and a frontrunner under:
Nun who taught Pope Leo XIV remembers his ‘missionary coronary heart’
She described the younger man who would grow to be pope, whom she nonetheless has direct contact with to at the present time, as a “threat taker” with a coronary heart mounted on service.
“A lot of the ministry websites that had been obtainable to the scholars there have been in faculties and parishes,” DelGenio stated. “However the one which he selected was at St. Victor Parish. However it was to work on an outreach group with all lay individuals. And these individuals had been educated to study drug habit, alcoholism and the struggling of the household in addition to the addict, and to do disaster intervention for them.”
The sister tells WCPO she’s assured below Pope Leo’s management that the true mission of the common church will proceed with a renewed function.
We requested her what message she thought was being despatched by the cardinals in choosing, for the primary time within the 2,000-year historical past of the church, a pope born in america.
“I am unsure what was of their minds and hearts, however I believe all of them prayed for authenticity,” stated DelGenio. “And I believe they noticed his sense of group due to his belonging to the Augustinian Neighborhood, and that he had a missionary coronary heart for the poor. So he’s not simply native and anxious about america. He has a world coronary heart and a world imaginative and prescient.”
