Papal choice followed closely by students

 Students at St. Matthew’s School in Kalispell were cheering along with the crowds standing in St. Peter’s Square in Rome as Jorge Mario Bergoglio was named as the new pope.

They also prayed along with Pope Francis as he recited the familiar “Our Father” and “Hail Mary” prayers.

Many students crowded around TV and computer screens Wednesday, waiting to catch a glimpse of the new pope, Principal Lauren Smith said.

“I felt the power of prayer in the children,” Smith said. “It is something I will always remember.”

Physical education teacher Philip Jackson was with a class of fourth-graders during the excitement. Jackson said when the new pope asked for people to pray for him, silence filled the school.

“This is a big deal,” Jackson said. “The fourth-graders, normally boisterous, were silent. They were all praying. It was one of the most powerful things I experienced.”

Electing a new pope is momentous, seventh-grader Sean Manning said.

The time leading up to the naming of a new pope was very suspenseful, according to a group of nine students.

“We were doing a worksheet in class,” seventh-grader Kacie Barrett said.

Classmate Katia Postovit added: “And then the balcony [where the new pope was to appear] would pop up and then we would stare at the screen waiting.”

“You could see shadows behind a curtain,” Barrett said. “It was probably the most-watched window in the world” at that moment.

The students have high hopes for Pope Francis, who has, in the words of seventh-grader Annalise McGuire, “broken tradition” as the first pope elected from outside Europe in more than a millennium. Many students agreed this reflects a global world. 

Manning and seventh-grader Alex Coulter hope Pope Francis will appeal to younger generations and bring more people to the Catholic faith. Barrett said she also is looking for the pope to establish more religious freedom in communist countries or countries run under a dictatorship.

A photo of retired Pope Benedict XVI still hangs on the wall in the main office of St. Matthew’s. 

The Rev. Rod Ermatinger, St. Matthew’s pastor, and Monsignor Donald Shea of John Paul II Catholic Church in Bigfork were impressed by Pope Francis’ immediate call for prayer for the retired pope, and that he asked the crowd for a moment of silence to pray for him.

“They are picking a pope they think is best for right now, but foremost a pope that is a man of God, a man of prayer and a man of virtue,” Ermatinger said.

Pope Francis is also “man of the people,” Ermatinger added about the new pope who lived in a one-room apartment, routinely took the bus to work in Argentina, cooked his own meals and regularly visited the poor.

Ermatinger and Shea also touched on the importance of a pope’s namesake. 

Taking the name of Francis of Assisi — the name of a deacon — is significant, Shea said, because it relates that humility.

“When God spoke to Francis of Assisi, he said, ‘Fix my church,’” Shea said.

What St. Francis realized, Shea said, is that it was the institutional church that needed fixing.

“He [Pope Francis] is taking the same marching order,” Shea said.

Pope Francis is a Jesuit, “which says he’s a brilliant man,” he added.

Ermatinger said the new pope recognizes the need for reform among Catholic leadership that governs the church and addressing scandals the church faces.