Spiritual connection

White smoke signaling the election of a new pope emerged from the roof of the Sistine Chapel on May 8, 2025. It was 11:07 a.m. Central Daylight Time and Heather Deneen, Staff Chaplain at CHI St. Alexius Health, was at the Annunciation Monastery on the campus of the University of Mary in Bismarck attending the Ministry of Sponsorship Day.
 
Deneen shared that when word came out that a pope had been chosen, all the TVs were turned on throughout the university campus. “Let’s take a lunch break,” the presenter announced. “There’s no way I can keep your attention now.”
 
Deneen and others recessed to the campus cafeteria, a short walk away. Keeping an eye on a TV screen while chatting with a fellow attendee of the conference, she spotted Cardinal Protodeacon step onto the central balcony of St. Peter’s. “Habemus papam!”  he announced. ("We have a pope!")
 
The cafeteria grew still. Who could it be? There had been some talk of an American but the widely held belief among Church experts was that an American would never be elected pope—too political, too much of an economic power… 

Then the name came—“Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost!” 

Murmurs rippled through the room, “Who is he?” 

“He’s American!” Deneen announced. “I know exactly who he is.”
 
It was Fr. Bob to her! He had been Deneen’s spiritual director for three months in Chicago before he left to become a bishop in Peru. Pope Leo XIV, a 69-year-old Chicago native, elected on the second day of the conclave surprised the world, but for Deneen, it was breathtaking.
 
When the conference resumed, she could not contain her excitement. 
 
 “Everyone was in disbelief that an American would be pope,” she recounted. “I started telling everyone that he was my spiritual director for three months. He was someone with my same background, he grew up in the south side of Chicago, we both had degrees from CTU [Catholic Theological Union in Chicago], and I once sat across from him as my spiritual director.”
 
From Chicago to Rome
 
The future pontiff received his theological education at CTU. At the age of 27, he studied canon law at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome and was ordained there on June 19, 1982, at the Augustinian College. He was sent to the Augustinian mission in Peru in 1985. In October 2013, he returned to his Augustinian Province in Chicago, serving as director of formation and provincial vicar until Pope Francis appointed him as a bishop in Peru in November 2014. He became an archbishop in January 2023 and a cardinal in September of that same year.
 
Deneen also grew up on the south side of Chicage, graduated in with degrees in Japanese and political science, and then taught English in Japan for three years. After returning to the U.S and working at several jobs, she was drawn to a religious vocation. She entered a Felician convent in Pennsylvania and spent time in Connecticut and South Carolina before getting sent to Chicago to attend the Catholic Theological Union where she received a master’s in divinity.
 
“When I started school in 2014, I needed a spiritual director,” Deneen explained. “I loved the Augustinian seminary students in my classes, so I asked them for a suggestion. Their house of studies was right across the street from CTU. They recommended Fr. Bob who had moved into their house, just back to the states from Peru.”
 
Deneen contacted Father Bob (Prevost) and made an appointment. 
 
“He was very quiet and listened attentively,” she recalled. “He said I needed to pray more and that made sense. At our third meeting, he gave me the news that he was being named a bishop in Peru, and we’d have to discontinue spiritual direction. The Augustinians in the Chicago area have a mission in Peru.”
 
Ultimately, Deneen did not stay with the religious order and instead became a hospital chaplain which led her to CHI St. Alexius Health in Bismarck where she has worked for five years. One of the Felician sisters that Deneen kept in touch with had written once that she heard Deneen’s former spiritual director had become a cardinal.
 
“After Pope Francis died,” Deneen recalled, “I heard some talk about Cardinal Prevost being considered for the papacy. I didn’t know if it was a joy or a concern that he was being considered.” 
 
Deneen mentioned it to friends to pray for him either way. The next thing that she heard along with the rest of the world was that he had become the first American pope.
 
“He’s a person from my neighborhood and then he became pope,” Deneen said. “I think for a lot of people in Chicago—and my mom said this—he seems ‘human.’ Yeah, he has a favorite pizza place in Chicago; he was very normal.
 
“I think his act of selflessness to become pope, reflects the selflessness of Christ on the Cross,” Deneen reflected. “Now, when he comes back to Chicago, it’s not like he can go to his favorite pizza place without causing a scene. If he ever comes back, the reaction would probably be greater than when the Cubs won the World Series. I think the city would shut down.
 
“Jesus is always calling us to give up our own wants and needs for the good of others and the good of the Church, but by becoming pope, now, the moment he sets foot anywhere, he’s not able to be himself. He’s the vicar of Christ and everything he does is for the good of the Church.”
 
Last fall, Deneen looked up, on the internet, how to send a card to the pope. 
 
“I don’t know if it will even get read by him, but I wanted to write to him,” she shared. “I talked about what I did after religious life and thanked him for being the pope and how awed I was at his gift of self.”