OBERNBURG — Right from the beginning, Father George E. Baker of St. Mary’s Church in Obernburg sensed the warm way of welcoming and openness on the part of the new pope.

Pope Leo XIV, as is his chosen name, “is like that of Pope Francis before him, addressing all walks of life,” said Father Baker. 

“And,” he said with a smile, “the new pope has charisma.”

Born in Chicago and named Robert Prevost, the new pope is the first-ever head of the Catholic Church from the United States.

“As I looked at him, I saw his humility and his surrender at the call of the Holy Spirit,” said Father Baker.

But it took a while for the local priest to remember that, amazingly, he and the new pope had studied at the same time in what is called the Pontifical North American College in Rome, Italy. 

A school for men in their 20s and 30s, the college requires individuals qualified as seminarians or priests studying for a diocese in the U.S. and nominated by their bishop.

“I was the first American to be on the student body council (at the Pontifical College) to study theology,” Father Baker recalled. During those days, he also worked with Mother Teresa in India caring for the destitute and dying in the slums.

Both men went their own ways. Father Baker served as parochial vicars for three Manhattan parishes: Our Lady of Victory, St. Peter’s, and Epiphany Church and then in the Bronx at St. Benedict’s and St. Anthony’s. He also served as chaplain at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan.

Meanwhile, Robert Prevost had completed his undergraduate education in 1977 at Villanova University in Philadelphia, a Catholic Augustinian college named after Saint Augustine. He went on to earn a master of divinity degree from Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union in 1982 and was ordained a priest. 

Father Prevost later picked up doctorate degrees in canon law from the Pontifical College of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. Eventually, he joined an Augustinian mission in Peru in 1985 and remained there until 1999, returning to Chicago.

“Now we have a leader from the heartland in this country,” says Father Baker with a smile. “You can see his humility and a sense of surrender to the call of the Holy Spirit. If any country needs the Holy Spirit to lead us and inspire us, it’s him.”

“We need to be bridge builders,” said Baker. “God has created us all, and God is very much alive in the spirit. The church is not dead – it’s wondrous and amazing. Elation and prayers for the U.S.A!”