Two days before Pope Leo XIV, a native Chicagoan who is a member of the Augustinian religious community, was elected the 267th pope by the College of Cardinals, students at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Academy elected their own native Chicagoan in a mock conclave, and the student elected took the name “Augustine” when he accepted his election.

The event was covered by Chicago Catholic and local news media, and it went viral starting in the two days before Pope Leo was elected.

Twenty first through fourth graders dressed in costumes resembling cardinals, down to red hats made out of card stock, and acted out the process of the conclave with the rest of the student body taking part as the watching crowd.

When they elected a “pope” — fourth grader Auggie Wilk — white smoke billowed out of a chimney in the courtyard outside and “Pope Augustine” greeted the other students from a window.

The photos and videos touched the hearts of countless people across the world.

Dominic Moretti, a teacher and director of marketing, conceived the idea a few years ago. Moretti said the school  has heard from people all over Chicago and Illinois and from as far away as the United Kingdom, Mexico, Spain, the Philippines, Singapore, Italy, France and Canada.

“We’ve all been very proud of these kids,” Moretti said a week after the event. “Everyone who’s ever been connected to this school or parish has reached out. … I don’t know that they realize it yet at their age, but they brought everyone a lot of joy.”

Students had to apply to be one of the 20 cardinals; five sixth graders portrayed cardinals over 80 who could not vote but helped run the conclave.

Moretti and a few other teachers worked over the weekend to get the costumes ready, including creating the red “mozettas,” or capes, out of felt.

“Sunday was First Communion, Monday was Grandparents Day and Tuesday was the conclave, so it was a busy week,” Moretti said.

Max Schnakenberg, who played one of the cardinals, said the reaction was “crazy.”

“Auggie goes down there, and everybody was giving him high-fives and everybody was just screaming,” he said of the conclave. “And then there were news cameras around. It was really exciting.”

“I think it was really a fun experience for the school and it also attracted a lot of attention for the school itself,” Auggie Wilk said. “Although the only thing I think I was missing was a popemobile.”

All of the students had names picked out that they would take as pope if elected.

“I mostly chose it because it was closest to my name, but also when St. Augustine was still alive, I really like the subjects he was studying,” Wilk said.

The families of each student celebrated their famous “cardinals,” they said.

“My dad told my grandma that I was on the news. And then my grandma was at the gym, and she told every single person there about it. So then it got around Michigan,” Schnakenberg said, adding that the news had also spread to Iowa, where his grandmother’s sister lives.

“Yes, I am famous among my family,” Wilk said. “I’ve heard from every single relative I have.”

His grandmother baked him a cake to congratulate him.

Student Oona Lin has a relative who is  a reporter in the Philippines reach out to her for an interview.

“I said it was fun because girls can’t be cardinals in real life or become pope,” she said.

The whole experience offered a better lesson than just reading or hearing about a conclave the students said.

“This really deepened our understanding of the conclave and what it was like, because there was some pressure in the room,” Wilk said. “I think it taught us how the cardinals must feel in the conclave.”