Where Were You When It Happened

Isn’t it nice when that question – where were you when it happened – is associated with something so extraordinarily meaningful and positive as the election of a new pope?

When the white smoke began to flow on Thursday, I was sitting in a hotel room in Louisville, Kentucky, finishing up a video conference. I had the TV on mute, and then out of the corner of my eye, I saw the white smoke. For the next hour, I joined most of the world in watching and waiting as the new Pope’s identity was revealed.

It is almost amusing as the pundits and so-called experts try to predict how this American Augustinian will lead the Catholic church. The answer is, we don’t know. Pope Leo XIV will chart his own course. I do know this…if my Villanova alum father-in-law were still alive, no one would ever hear the end of it!

I mentioned I was in Louisville. That was the closest airport to the site of my last meeting as Board chair of the International Catholic Stewardship Council, which was held at St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana. (I will admit to being totally confused as to why my hotel was in Kentucky when my meeting was in Indiana. I needed a little geography refresher.)

As my group walked to dinner, cooked by the seminarians and Benedictine monks, lo and behold, there was a picture of our own Deacon Chris Malone on the wall! He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award at St. Meinrad last July, which you can read about here: https://www.saintmeinrad.edu/news?story=14977. So well-deserved!

As I learned, the Diocese of Richmond has enjoyed a close relationship with St. Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology since the late 1990s when they helped the Diocese of Richmond set up our Permanent Diaconate Program.

That’s a roundabout story of where I was when Pope Leo XIV was introduced to the world. Where were you?

God Bless,

Margaret

Margaret Keightley
Executive Director
Catholic Community Foundation of the Diocese of Richmond