Where were you during the moon landing in 1969?
On Sept. 11, 2001, when the first plane crashed?
In March 2020 when toilet paper disappeared?
Each generation has its own “Where were you…?” memories marking moments when the world paused together at a critical juncture.
For the Catholic faithful, the announcement of a new pope will always be such a moment.
And on May 8, something especially surprising happened when Cardinal Robert Prevost of Chicago appeared on a balcony in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, waving to the welcoming crowds below.
I’d hoped to witness the announcement, but as the excitement of it reverberated throughout the world, I was focused elsewhere and denied hearing the world’s first-ever American-born pope, Pope Leo XIV, speak his inaugural words to the faithful.
Where were you in that moment?
I was recording a remote podcast episode from my home studio, speaking to a guest whose opinion and perspective I greatly admire. During our brief break, he checked the news updates on his phone and announced, with shock, that a pope had been chosen — and he was American!
But there was no time to pause. After hearing an unrecognizable name, I redirected us back to the discussion.
From there, I moved quickly into the rest of the day. First, I stopped at North Dakota State University to check out my computer-science-major son’s senior application development project in the Memorial Union — the only chance I’d have to see his work before graduation.
Then, I swung by a friend’s to begin our four-hour trip to Minot to attend the 2025 North Dakota Professional Communicators spring conference the next day.
Upon arrival, we set our sights on visiting the grave of our friend and colleague, former Forum reporter Ellen Crawford, before sunset. Though it meant missing the first gathering, we determined it was worth our effort to stop to say a brief prayer at her beautiful resting spot at Rose Hill Cemetery.
I hit the pillow hard that night, waking the next day to another packed schedule, which made perusing stories on the unprecedented development at the Vatican still impossible.
Indeed, while much of the world lingered over this incredible happening, I moved in a different direction, starkly feeling the paradox of being a religion reporter yet unable to experience one of the year’s biggest faith events in real time.
In this, I learned that FOMO (fear of missing out) is real, but soon, I realized also that despite missing an important moment, I’d been able to taste many other wonderful moments just as important, if not more so.
I’m now caught up with the world-changing news, anticipating with great optimism what it might mean for the Church and our world. I hope to report on some of it soon.
For now, despite being late to the party, I can faintly hear the echoes of “Habemus Papam!”, and join others in praying that Pope Leo might be the agent of unity and peace our world so desperately needs.
[For the sake of having a repository for my newspaper columns and articles, I reprint them here, with permission, a week after their run date. The preceding ran in The Forum newspaper on May 18, 2025.]
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