From left, Matthew Schumacher of the Diocese of Green Bay in Wisconsin, Father Colin Jones of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Alex Urbanski of the Diocese of Grand Rapids in Michigan and Casey LaMotte of the Archdiocese of Omaha in Nebraska, are with Father Jonathan Kelly as he shakes hands with Pope Leo XIV at the pope’s general audience Nov. 26 in Rome. COURTESY VATICAN MEDIA
Father Jonathan Kelly, rector of St. John Vianney College Seminary (SJV) in St. Paul, and seminarians from the college studying in Rome received an unexpected blessing the day before Thanksgiving: They met and spoke with Pope Leo XIV at his general Wednesday audience.

“I was able to thank him for the way he has encouraged priests and seminarians through his homilies and speeches,” Father Kelly said Dec. 12, adding that he has used the pope’s reflections in his work as rector.

Matthew Schumacher, a seminarian from the Diocese of Green Bay in Wisconsin, said of the pope, “‘He’s so loving; he looked right into us,’” Father Kelly noted.

Seminarians at SJV study for a semester in Rome at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, also known as the Angelicum. Father Colin Jones is in Rome as well, serving the seminarians as formation assistant and pursuing his doctorate in Scripture at the Pontifical Gregorian University.

Father Kelly said he was in the same room with the late Pope Francis but had never spoken directly with a pope before.

“To have a pope from the upper Midwest and who knows the upper Midwest and who speaks English was really special,” Father Kelly said of Pope Leo. “We really felt the peace of Christ through his presence.”

The pope’s humility was striking, said Father Kelly, who shook the pope’s hand. “When you shake the hand of a pope you are bridging time itself,” he said. “His name is Robert (Prevost) and he’s from Chicago, but he is the successor of Peter. It takes you all the way back to the time of Peter and of Jesus.”