As cardinal, Pope Leo XIV balanced the sacramental with the personal while confirming teenagers

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SOAVE, Italy (AP) — The announcement that an American cardinal had been elected Roman Catholic Church’s 267th pope had special meaning for a group of students at an international Catholic school in Rome.

Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost — now Pope Leo XIV — confirmed the Marymount International School 9th graders, usually 14 or 15 years old, in a Mass on May 11, 2024. After learning that a secret conclave had chosen him as pope, students have been “absolutely elated,’’ school head Sarah Gallagher said Saturday by telephone.

A Catholic school with American ties, Marymount typically has an American cardinal confirm its students, and last year tapped Cardinal Prevost, a relative newcomer, about a year after Pope Francis brought him to Rome as a member of the curia.

“Afterwards, we had dinner with him. There was just no way of predicting,’’ that he was destined for the papacy, Gallagher said. “He is a very quiet, unassuming sort of person. He didn’t give the impression of being a mover-and-shaker in Vatican circles at all.’’

Each of the more than 30 students had written him a letter about their thoughts heading into confirmation, one of Catholicism’s seven sacraments, often seen as the “sacrament of maturity.’’ He took time with each of them, Gallagher said.

“One of the things he was able to do beautifully, in my view, was to maintain a sense of the sacramental, but to make it intimate for the students, for each of them,’’ she said, describing “a lovely peace at the time” that he created with his “softness, and gentleness.”

“I think it was visible in St. Peter’s Thursday evening. The smile. There is an ease of manner that I think that sets people at ease,’’ she said.

Gallagher couldn’t remember if any of the students chose Leo as a confirmation name last year; versions of Francis were in vogue for many years, for Leo’s predecessor. “Wouldn’t that be extraordinary,” she wondered.