ST. PAUL, Minn. (OSV News) — A recently installed chimney on the roof of St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul billowed white smoke into a clear, blue sky May 8, mirroring the smoke that emitted from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney in Vatican City and signaling the election of a new pope.
“The chimney was one of the three phases that we came up with to prepare for the celebration of the new Holy Father; we wanted to have some sort of celebration as soon as he was elected,” said Brennan Crow, 20, a junior at SJV. Crow said planning was underway less than a week before Cardinal Robert F. Prevost was elected Pope Leo XIV.
Crow told The Catholic Spirit, the newspaper for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, that Father Jonathan Kelly, the seminary rector, had the idea to install the chimney.
“He had a friend who owns a sauna company,” Crow said. “So, we took a sauna stove with a bronze pipe, just like they have in the Sistine Chapel, and we hooked a fog machine up to it.”
Crow joked that “we’re not as advanced as the Sistine Chapel,” and said different materials were used to recreate the two types of smoke. To create black smoke (signaling the College of Cardinals had not yet reached a two-thirds majority decision on a new pope), the seminarians used black smoke bombs. To create white smoke, Crow said a mixture of water and a special soap was added to the fog machine.
Celebratory procession
Crow said that earlier that day, as he and some fellow seminarians were going over plans for a procession — another phase to mark the announcement of the new pope — Crow received a text from a friend that white smoke was visible from the Sistine Chapel.
“I was like, he’s gotta be kidding me, there’s no way that’s happening this soon,” Crow said. “But we started the chain of events; we were well-planned.”
With the white smoke from the chimney as a backdrop, students, staff and seminarians gathered on the lawn outside SJV. The roughly 50 T-shirts and 70 mugs that the seminarians had made for the occasion went quickly.
The procession included a mock motorcade complete with decorated golf carts and seminarian Nicholas Deutsch dressed as a pope. As the procession wound through the University of St. Thomas’ campus, seminarians handed out over 200 boxes of candy and over 400 ice cream treats, even tossing some into the crowds of those gathered.
“Our seminary, they always show up and show out for big events,” said Kylie Watts, 24, a student in the University of St. Thomas’ Graduate School of Professional Psychology who was observing the crowd. “It’s cool that they’re being really celebratory of the new pope. And it’s cool that we have an American pope; I never thought I’d see the day that that happened. It’s cool to see people be excited about it.”
“We knew there was a tradition here prior, to go big and celebrate a lot when the (new) pope came in,” said Joseph Johnson, a sophomore at SJV, as crowds gathered around the mock motorcade that had stopped briefly outside the Anderson Student Center. Shouts of “Leo! Leo! Leo!” and “First American pope!” could be heard. Originally from Chicago, Pope Leo XIV became the first American-born pope in history.
An American pope
“I was just shocked that we have an American pope, I wasn’t expecting that at all,” said Father Kelly, who was also part of the crowd. He told The Catholic Spirit that then-Cardinal Prevost “came to have dinner with our men (at SJV) in the fall, so our men had dinner with (Pope) Leo XIV, about six months before he’s been elected.”
Meanwhile, Crow recalled being at the Pontifical Irish College — where, he explained, SJV seminarians spend their semester abroad in Rome — and listening to a presentation from then-Cardinal Prevost, who was serving as the prefect for the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops.
“He came in and he gave a wonderful presentation on the process of how that works,” Crow said.
At the time, the thought that he might be listening to a future pope didn’t even cross Crow’s mind. “It’s one of those things, thinking back like: If only you knew,” he said. But Crow added he did note then-Cardinal Prevost’s “dedication to his work and his willingness to share that with us.”
“He was very, very open to our questions,” he said.
Matthew Schumacher, 22, who is in his second year at SJV, said watching Pope Leo XIV as he approached the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica “was incredible to see.” Schumacher told The Catholic Spirit he felt “an overwhelming sense of joy, just seeing him come out onto the papal balcony, to know that this is now my Holy Father.”
Crow agreed.
“We could barely contain our excitement and joy, and we wanted to hear what he had to say but we were just so excited that that’s the first American pope,” he said.
Crow added that some of the seminarians “just ran like a frenzy up to the fifth floor (of SJV) to grab the American flag, to throw that into the procession.”
Reflecting on what he hopes to see from the new papacy, Schumacher said, “Part of the role of the pope is to shepherd people, to love Jesus and to love like Jesus loved. To see an increase in faith, hope and charity in the world, I think would be a great thing.”
Tess Munshower, 24, a graduate student in the university’s leadership and student affairs program, hoped to see a continuation of values that Pope Francis championed, “particularly with social justice issues.”
Munshower mentioned that in Pope Leo XIV’s first address, “He’s saying he’s a pope for the people, for everyone, the whole world — that’s what I hope for.”
“We’re in a time where we need to have more community and less division,” Watts told The Catholic Spirit. “I would like to see him (Pope Leo XIV) continue the legacy of Pope Francis of coming back to the root of the Church being a Church based in love and in welcoming.”
Worldwide celebration
Ahead of an afternoon Mass on campus to celebrate the new pope, many who had gathered to see the procession lingered, an energetic buzz continuing through the crowd.
“It’s a worldwide celebration,” Schumacher said as music played from a speaker nearby.
“Obviously the church is very, very happy that we have a Holy Father again. Even in the short time that we didn’t have a pope, that was so painful,” he said. “So now finally to have (Pope) Leo is amazing.”
Crow concurred. He said that “for all the Catholics, for the Christians and honestly for the whole world, this is a time of unity, of joy and of hope.”
Rebecca Omastiak is news editor of The Catholic Spirit, newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. This story was originally published in The Catholic Spirit and is distributed through a partnership with OSV News.
