People on the campus of Catholic University in D.C. learned a new pope had been picked when the nearby church’s bells began ringing loudly Thursday afternoon.
People who were on the campus of Catholic University in D.C. got the news of the selection of the new pope when the nearby church’s bells began ringing loudly Thursday afternoon.
Hundreds of people began cheering as the news quickly spread throughout the crowd, with some wiping away tears.
Many were attending mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception when the church’s massive bells began ringing for nine minutes to signal the news that white smoke was billowing from the Vatican’s chimney.
Father Douglas Hunter was chaperoning a group of junior high school students from a Catholic school in Indianapolis, Indiana, when he got the news that Cardinal Robert Prevost had been selected by the papal conclave to become the new pope. Prevost took the name Pope Leo XIV.
Hunter said it was a day he and his students will remember the rest of their lives.
“It is a beautiful time for the American church locally, but also for the international church as well,” he said.
