“Exciting white smoke.”

That was the text I received the morning of May 8 as I walked into the parish offices of St. Elizabeth Church.

It came from my friend Anne Kane, a fellow parishioner, and I knew immediately what it meant.

We had a new pope.

Parish secretary Stacey Knepper and I watched the proceedings streaming on–what else?–Catholic TV. When Cardinal Dominique Mamberti, senior cardinal deacon, came out onto the balcony to make the announcement, about an hour had passed since the white smoke billowed up from the makeshift chimney atop the Sistine Chapel.

“Habemus papum,” Mamberti said.

We have a pope.

People had been gathering in St. Peter’s Square, with the crowd swelling from 40,000 to 150,000 in that 60-minute window. Commentators caught on immediately once Mamberti announced the new pontiff’s name in Latin: “Roberto Francisco Cardinalem Prevost,” who would take the name Leo XIV.

“It’s the American!” one said.

Seconds later, the crowd below erupted.

We were excited, too.

For me, it felt kind of cool to have a pope only 2 years and seven months older than me. This is someone of my generation, someone whose cultural history is not all that far removed from my own. I wondered if that’s how my father felt in 1978 when the former Karol Wojtyla was elected pope at the age of 58. Pope John Paul II and my dad both were born in 1920. Or my paternal grandmother, who was 65 the year Giovanni Montini became Pope Paul VI in 1963 at the age of 65. It is interesting to think about the things that are important to you when you are a college junior as I was in 1978 compared to being a 60-something. At 20, even a 58-year-old pope seemed ancient. Today, a 69-year-old pontiff seems young.

It is only a month into the new pontiff’s tenure so it’s a bit early to tell what his papacy may look like. But we get clues from his official–and unofficial–actions.

Just a few days ago, the AP reported on Pope Leo’s message during Sunday Mass at the Vatican. It was the Feast of Pentecost, the official close to the Easter Season. “Pope Leo XIV criticized the surge of nationalist political movements in the world as he prayed Sunday for reconciliation and dialogue, a message in line with his pledges to make the Catholic Church a symbol of peace,” according to the AP story. “Where there is love, there is no room for prejudice, for security zones separating us from our neighbors, for the exclusionary mindset that, tragically, we now see emerging also in political nationalisms,” the pontiff said.

The bottom line is the witness you’d expect from the pope, and hopefully from any person with any degree of empathy, regardless of religious–or non-religious–affiliation: peace and compassion. Pope Leo XIV asks Catholics to pray for the world to grow in compassion. I think it’s a message we cannot hear enough, judging by the state of the world right now.

Last Wednesday, a number of folks from our parish, along with fellow Catholics from Holy Family in Adrian and Light of Christ in Deerfield traveled on two school buses to the Solanus Casey Center at St. Bonaventure Church in Detroit.

Blessed Solanus Casey (1870-1957) was a simple man with a deep faith in God. He served the sick and the poor of Detroit, demonstrating the same kind of compassion to each person who came to the door of St. Bonaventure–helping those who were suffering in poverty by offering food from the monastery kitchen. He listened intently to their needs and prayed with them. Rather than being caught up with the distractions we often find ourselves preoccupied with, Casey kept it simple: Pray. Serve. Love. At the Solanus Casey Center, they say that each of us is on the road to sainthood. While the Catholic Church has its own process for achieving such a designation, in our ordinary lives, we can achieve this each and every day by working toward a more peaceful, compassionate world, no matter where life’s journey takes us.

Let’s start today elevating our own lives from the ordinary to the extraordinary by spreading compassion among all whose lives we touch.

I am a retired journalism professor, having taught 14 years at Adrian College in Adrian, Michigan and currently an adjunct professor in English at Siena Heights University. Prior to that, I spent 20 years working as a reporter and editor for The Saline Reporter and Milan News-Leader, small newspapers which were purchased in 1995 by Heritage Newspapers. Those papers were shuttered permanently in the mid-2010s. I also free-lanced for The Daily Telegram and currently am a regular contributor to The Tecumseh Herald and Homefront publications. I am an alumna of Siena Heights University, where I earned a bachelor's degree in English in 1980 and the University of Toledo, where I received my master's degree in 1982. View all posts by reneecollins

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