ASHLAND — As white smoke billowed out of the Sistine Chapel last week to signify the selection of a new pope, it also poured out of a classroom at Ashland’s own St. Edward Catholic School.
Except, at St. Edward, it didn’t come out of a chimney with seagulls sitting upon it. Instead, the smoke was made out of tissue paper and taped onto a poster outside of fifth- and sixth–grade teacher Juli Schneeg’s classroom.
It’s part of the Catholic school’s charge to teach students about religion.
The last few weeks have been a big deal in the Catholic faith, with Pope Francis’ passing resulting in the selection of a new pope.
Robert Prevost, a Chicago-born missionary who spent much of his career ministering in Peru, was selected as his successor on May 8. Prevost took the name of Pope Leo XIV.
For Schneeg, the selection of a new pope became an opportunity to hammer home one of her students’ Catholic identity goals.
Those goals serve as part of the curriculum at St. Edward School. Specifically, she saw it as a chance for them to practice evangelization, or speaking about their faith.
So, she held a mock conclave. Each of her students were randomly assigned a cardinal to research. Then, they prepared speeches to share with their classmates as to why they would make a good pope.
And finally — the class voted for a new pope.
Let the conclave commence
Students in Schneeg’s class described giving speeches and acting as their assigned cardinals. The activity not only touched on students’ religious education, but also incorporated research, writing, public speaking and social skills.
Schneeg said she gave students a template for their research. They had to find information about political issues in their cardinals’ home countries, along with their positions on key debates in the Catholic church.
Namely, students were asked to research their cardinal’s position on climate change and on whether women should be ordained.
Many of their speeches incorporated those elements. Emily Johnson, one of the students in the class, said the speeches were about what the cardinals believed — not the individual students.
It took four rounds of voting for her class to select a pope. Students voted blindly, and Schneeg told them not to vote based on who was their friend in class, but based on the content of speeches.
“I told them I’ve never been more proud of them because they all put so much effort into it and took it really seriously,” Schneeg said.
Pope Francis II
When all was said and done, the students selected Michael Bittner to take on the papacy. Bittner had portrayed Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State.
Avery Neill, one of Bittner’s classmates, said Bittner offered good reasons as to why he should be the pope. Traditionally, cardinals don’t campaign for the papacy, but the mock conclave handled that differently.
Each pope, once selected, chooses a papal name. Bittner did the same, selecting to call himself Pope Francis II.
“I thought he did a great job,” Bittner said, noting he appreciated Francis’ stance on climate change.
Francis recognized climate change as a global problem when he served as the pope, criticizing countries like China and the U.S. for their high emissions in a papal letter in 2015.
Bittner received the title of pope in front of the whole school. Schneeg added he wrote his own speech to share with his classmates after his selection.
That speech, according to Bittner, consisted of thanking the classmates who were influential in his campaign for the papacy. Specifically, he thanked a classmate who went out of her way to tell him his initial speech was well-done. He also thanked Johnson, the classmate who came in as runner-up.
Bittner’s speech also touched on not giving up and having confidence in yourself.
