MOBILE, Alabama – Seminarian Phillip Halladay, an American studying in Rome, at first believed the smoke coming from the Vatican chimney on Wednesday afternoon was black.
In St. Peter’s Square for the event, Halladay -- who graduated from McGill-Toolen Catholic High School in Mobile -- started to walk away.
“My eye caught one of the television screens that stream in the square, and I then noticed it appeared to be turning white,” he recalled by email Thursday. “The other seminarian I was standing with started screaming at me, ‘It’s turning white; it’s white!’”
The students at the Pontifical North American College, which overlooks St. Peter's Basilica, had come to the square on the second day of the papal conclave to elect a successor to retired Pope Benedict XVI. Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, was chosen on the fifth ballot.
“Then it was like I was standing on some moving platform as we rushed and were thrust forward by the massive crowd to position ourselves front and center under the balcony,” he said.
Halladay described the experience as “surreal” and “a night of total surprise.” Though he is studying in Rome, he is a seminarian with the Diocese of Nashville in Tennessee. He graduated from McGill in 1990, according to the school.
The choice of Bergoglio as the new pope was surprising, Halladay said. “It was not someone anyone had thought of,” he added. “I think it speaks volumes to everyone. In the time for ‘New Evangelisation,’ who better than a man from the order whose success in this type work and missionary work of spreading faith the world over is second to none?”
He said the name chosen by Pope Francis was fitting, as St. Francis of Assisi was “the quintessential New Evangelist.”
The qualities most needed in a pope today, he said, are the three theological virtues of faith, hope and love, as well as “a man also who can, with all types of talents, give these to all people the world over.”
Carol McPhail is on Facebook and Twitter.