When the news broke that a Jesuit, former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was the new pope, students at Loyola Academy in Wilmette took it personally. “It was almost like a pep rally atmosphere,” said Jesuit Father Patrick E. McGrath, the school’s president, who reported students high-fiving him in the hallway after classes were dismissed for the day on March 13. “I was kind of taken aback at how excited the students were. They take an awful lot of pride in being connected to the Jesuit community.” Loyola Academy senior Christina Ulowetz agreed. “We have a lot of Jesuit pride,” she said. Most students, including Ulowetz and fellow senior Gavin Sullivan, found out about the election while they were in class, and then got more details from friends checking the internet during passing periods. Sullivan said a friend of his called up the news on his iPad during math class. “The new pope was a lot more interesting than calculus,” said Sullivan, who edits The Prep, Loyola’s school newspaper, and is president of the student council. For McGrath, the election of Pope Francis is of historical interest, especially as the first Jesuit since the creation of the order. Jesuits, he said, rarely become bishops because their own rules prohibit “ambitioning” for higher church office. But he hopes and believes that Pope Francis will draw on his Jesuit background as he governs the church. “I do think it’s kind of hard for a Jesuit not to be a Jesuit,” he said. “It’s our second nature to act from the background and training we have. Ignatian discernment emphasizes putting the important questions in the context of the ongoing discussions.” Already praying Students at both Loyola Academy and Cristo Rey Jesuit High School prayed for the new pope on the morning of March 14. At Cristo Rey, students had a half-day on March 13 and weren’t at school when the initial announcement was made, so they had an assembly on March 14 where they learned about the new pope, said Elizabeth Jennings White, the school’s director of development. “They were especially interested that he was Latino, since all of our students are Latino,” she said. Students at Chicago Jesuit Academy, a scholarship- based middle school for boys on the West Side, and at St. Procopius School also prayed for the new pope. “We are eager to learn more about him, and we take great hope from his commitment to social justice,” said Matthew Lynch, president of Chicago Jesuit Academy, in a statement. “Through his humility and the simple life he modeled as a cardinal in Argentina, he reminds us that we are all called to live lives of loving service as men and women for others.” At St. Procopius, Principal Brian O’Rourke visited classrooms to share the news of Pope Francis’ election during the school day March 13. Many classrooms were already aware of it and talking about the news, he said. The school likely will hold a prayer service or celebrate the pope’s election at a Mass early next week. Students, especially in the upper grades, had been talking about how a pope is elected since Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI announced his resignation, O’Rourke said, and students learn a little bit about different religious orders when they discuss vocations and also the sacrament of holy orders. “They know we are sponsored by the Jesuits, and that our pastor, Father Sean O’Sullivan and the other priests here are a little different from maybe the typical parish priest.” Surprised by news Jesuit Father Timothy Kesicki, provincial of the Chicago-Detroit province of the Society of Jesus said he had “no idea” Cardinal Bergoglio would be elected. He said he was watching the news on television and the audio was a little behind so when he heard the cardinal-deacon say the name George in Latin he at first thought of Cardinal George. Then he heard “Bergoglio.” “And I thought ‘A Jesuit pope.’ Unbelievable,” said the provincial following the 5:15 p.m. Mass of thanksgiving for Pope Francis at Holy Name Cathedral on March 13. His being the first Jesuit pope in the history of the church is a surprise and gift to the religious order. “That one would say yes to this office is a moment of grace for us, a moment of humility and a moment of hope, hope for how he may ask us — knowing our charism — to serve the various needs of the world,” said Kesicki. “One of the things I look to see is how his own Ignatian formation and knowledge of the Society of Jesus will affect his governance,” he said. This formation includes knowledge of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises — a series of prayers, mediations and practices put together by St. Ignatius of Loyola to help people grow closer to God — and the rules for Ignatian discernment. Kesicki hasn’t met Pope Francis but he looks forward to talking to other provincials who know him. “I think the greatest thing we can do is pray for him and with him,” he said. “He’s going to need our support.” Monica Mavric, a judge in the archdiocesan Tribunal, might be one of only a few Chicago-area Catholics to have met the new pope. Mavric, who hails from Argentina, met him twice when she travelled to Buenos Aires to confer with officials in the archdiocesan Tribunal there, first in 2009 and then a year or two later. The first time, she said, the Archdiocese of Chicago was in the midst of Catholics Come Home, a campaign using advertisements to encourage non-practicing Catholics to return to church. Mavric took Catholics Come Home materials to share with then-Cardinal Bergoglio. “He was very happy to have it,” she said. He gave her a copy of a book he wrote, “El verdadero poder es el servicio” (“The True Power is Service”) and signed it for her. In the inscription, he asked for her prayers just as he asked for prayers from the people in St. Peter’s Square when he stepped onto the loggia. “This book has of course become a treasure, a family treasure,” Mavric said. Mavric was watching news of the conclave with interest, she said. “I would have been very happy for anyone to be elected.” But she was thrilled to find it was someone she knew. “He is a very humble person, very easy to approach,” Mavric said, adding that when she called once to make arrangements for the meeting, he answered his own office phone. “He was a very good listener,” she said of their meeting. “He was very attentive to what I had to say, and he didn’t seem to be in a hurry, although of course he must have had many other things to do.” When the meeting ended, he walked with her to the elevator, she said. While his election seemed to come as a surprise to most Catholics around the world, Mavric said she had been wondering whether he would be elected. “I know a few cardinals, and of course you think of the ones you know,” she said. “I knew, of course, he was a possibility — he had been mentioned even last time — but it’s not like I was thinking specifically he would be the one. “I give great weight to the work of the conclave, and it is not our place to hope for anyone in particular — just for the right one,” she said.