Fr Ken Mazur, PIME missionary, at school with the Pope
The PIME missionary studied at CTU with Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV. He remembers a quiet, practical man, able to listen, the American PIME priest told AsiaNews. His election is a sign of hope for the American Church. The new pope spoke of peace, he is a missionary, he “could give hope to the Catholic Church in the United States.”
Detroit (AsiaNews) – “When I heard 'Robertum Franciscum', I went: 'Oh my God, it's Bob!'," said Father Ken Mazur, a PIME missionary, who remembers Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, because he went to school with him.
“We went for four years of theology right before our ordination” at “the Catholic Theological Union, CTU” in Chicago. “It is a school with many different religious groups, religious orders, Franciscans, Augustinians, PIME, the Divine Word missionaries, Xaverians. We all come together, we have one big school.”
The two were in school together “from 22 and 26.” But even then, Prevost, who belongs to the Order of Saint Augustine and, like Father Ken, was ordained in 1982, showed himself to be humble yet practical.
“I remember that he was very quiet,” said the PIME religious, who is now in the United States after serving as superior general between 2005 and 2015, speaking to AsiaNews. “He was, maybe we would say humble. He was also down-to-earth; he was friendly, he was approachable. He was someone you could talk to about your class, about your homework. Or about anything.”
“He was also very practical. He looked at things like everybody does. His head was not in the clouds all the time.”
Such qualities will certainly be useful to the new pontiff. They probably helped the new pope when he pursued theological studies in Canon Law at the Pontifical Angelicum University, in Rome.
In the United States, no one expected an American pope, not even Father Ken Mazur. “Here in America his name had circulated a bit, as a papabile, but I didn't believe it. I know him, and he is a good guy but an American pope … not possible," said the PIME missionary.
“Even though he hasn't lived in the United States in many years, he still has the American mentality of being able to handle a corporation, we could say. He is probably a very good organiser, like many Americans are. Which is also something that the Church needs.”
Pope Leo XIV, however, spent most of his life outside the United States: 20 years in Peru and 12 in Rome as prior general of the Augustinians.
For Father Ken, the fact that he is a missionary is something “tremendous. For us in PIME, that is just tremendous. He has the heart of a missionary. Even in his speeches, his little speech when he was introduced yesterday from the loggia, he talked about being a missionary Church. Which is also something that Pope Francis spoke about, but Pope Francis wasn’t a missionary. He (Prevost) was a missionary.”
The rest of the new pope’s speech also gave hope to a lot of American Catholics. “The fact that he would talk about building bridges, you know. And we have a crazy president who builds walls instead of building bridges. I think he was making the connection that he wanted to build bridges. He did not say: ‘I don’t want to build walls, but it could have been implied.”
Another aspect caught Father Ken’s attention. “I thought it was very interesting that he did not speak in English. He spoke in Italian, which is very good, and he spoke in Spanish to the people of Peru.”
By avoiding English, he tried to send a message, the PIME missionary suggests, perhaps so as not to appear too tied to the American context.
“This morning (on Friday) he had the Mass with the cardinals, and he began his homily in English, when yesterday he did not speak in English. I thought that was very interesting.”
However, the most important thing was the word he repeated several times: peace. “He thought very much about the words he chose. Everything he said had meaning to it,” the PIME missionary noted.
“Peace! He talked about peace. We need to have peace.” Even in the United States, where Catholics are increasingly divided by politics; “especially after COVID, even more people don't come to church, they have fallen away. I think this could be a boost, could give hope to the Catholic Church in the United States.”
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