HOLLAND, Mich. (WOOD) — The fields surrounding the Felt Mansion as soon as stood the halls of St. Augustine Seminary Excessive Faculty. It might be these grounds the place Pope Leo XIV would forge the constructing blocks that will take him to the Vatican.
Former classmate Dan King remembers those self same buildings.
“They were just raising good, intelligent, productive males for society,” he stated.
King attended the college as a highschool freshman from Dalton, Illinois, in 1969, simply blocks away from a younger Robert Prevost. It was a difficult but worthwhile expertise for King.
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“Everything was scheduled and a lot of prayer, a lot of mass, every day education and you had to do physical work and all the rest of that kind of stuff. It was competitive grades,” King stated. “You had to really, you know, do your work. And it was tough. So, the people were not making it for that reason. Or they left because they said they didn’t have the calling anymore, right? They didn’t feel like they wanted to go to the seminary anymore.”
His class of fifty college students would graduate as a bunch of 10, one thing frequent for the college. Whereas the work was aggressive, King stated it ready him for all times. It additionally ready him in being a part of the steering committee creating Corpus Christi Catholic Faculty in Holland, the place King serves as a Board of Training member.
“They were just raising good, intelligent, productive males for society,” he stated.
A PONTIFF IN THE MAKING
King remembers Prevost arriving on the college throughout his sophomore 12 months.
“Down the hallway, I remember some guys, they were two other kids in my class. They came running down the hallway and they said, ‘Dan, Dan, guess what?’ And I said, ‘What?’ ‘We just met somebody who’s smarter than you.’ And I’m like, ‘Really?’ And I went down to meet him. And I walked away from it saying, ‘I think he’s smarter than me,'” he stated.
A yearbook picture from St. Augustine Seminary Excessive Faculty exhibits Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV.
Yearbook pages are crammed with pictures of King and Prevost. In a single, the younger teenagers collect round a desk as a part of the membership that printed the “Encounter,” the seminary’s yearbook. In one other, the 2 stand in a bunch as a part of the Nationwide Honor Society chapter. In one other picture, Prevost is seen taking part in tennis.
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King stated Prevost was devoted to the aggressive teachers of the seminary.
“I remember him being, he was very humble, very, very humble, very quiet. But he was really nice, and I think ‘That guy’s going to, he’s going to go someplace,'” he stated.
King could not guess that a kind of locations can be as the pinnacle of the catholic church. He stated his spouse was anxiously ready for the announcement, as white smoke billowed out of the Sistine Chapel, signifying {that a} pope had been elected.
“She’s hoping it’s going to be, she knows, she feels. ‘I hope it’s Bob, I hope it’s Bob’ And I’m thinking, well, that would be nice, and she says ‘No, I feel it.'”
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There’s nonetheless some shock as he remembers Thursday’s announcement.
“It’s just an amazing, amazing that I would know a pope. You know, that I would have even gone to school with a pope. You know, a normal guy, grows up a normal kid just doing normal kid stuff, and he’s now in charge of what, 1.8 billion Catholics,” he stated.
Trying again at Prevost’s volunteer work round Holland, Douglas and the lakeshore to the years of mission work in Peru, King stated the brand new pope will information the church by shifting waters.
“I think he’s going to be a good guy for it. He’s the right guy. I can tell. When I saw him walk out of the balcony, he was about to cry,” he stated.
King hopes telling his tales and experiences with Pope Leo will encourage the subsequent era of Catholics by exhibiting the highs an individual can attain from humble beginnings
