During Pope Leo's Wednesday general audience, alongside the various cardinals and religious orders, there was a slightly younger-looking crowd.
You might remember them from their viral reinactment of the conclave in May. They're students from Our Lady of Mount Carmel Academy in Chicago, and their “mock conclave” stole the hearts of thousands around the world.
Their teacher, Allison Foerster, saw the reinactment as a way for the children to grasp the specifics of this ancient Catholic tradition, during the same time as the real conclave in Rome.
ALLISON FOERSTER
Teacher
An opportunity for our students to experience this tradition in our faith and understand it in a little more of a concrete way.
And just as the white smoke came forth in Rome, so it did in Chicago to the crowds international faithful, demonstrated by various flags, and the celebration of the “kid cardinals”.
Then on October 8, the Chicago elected “kid pope” was able to meet the actual Chicagoan pope, Leo XIV, when the school went on a field trip to Rome with Cardinal Cupich.
This might be one of the few instances in which Pope Leo met several new cardinals and Swiss guards he didn't know he had.
CRT
