Marine City — It was an exciting day for the students of Cardinal Mooney High School, Marine City: Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron was visiting, and they had a lot to show him about their school.

After morning Mass at Our Lady on the River Parish’s Holy Cross Church — just down the street from Cardinal Mooney — the archbishop was welcomed into the school building Dec. 11 by student ambassadors and faculty.

Principal Jason Petrella and director of development Bill Jennings, plus the student ambassadors, took the archbishop on a tour of the high school, which was founded in 1977. The current building in Marine City has served as the school’s home since 1990.

Archbishop Vigneron paused in one hallway to chat with a few students and swap mutual memories of the area, as Archbishop Vigneron had grown up nearby in Ira Township.

Later, the senior class of 2015 had the opportunity to meet and speak with the archbishop for a bit.

Standing at the front of their classroom as the seniors sat in their desks, Archbishop Vigneron asked them what they liked best about Cardinal Mooney High School.

Answers included “the small class sizes,” “how everyone knows everybody” and “the relationship we have with the teachers … we can ask them anything.”

Archbishop Vigneron encouraged the 12th-graders to remain faithful to their Catholicism when they go to college the following year.

“You will be engaged with a much broader range of opinions, views, convictions that you don’t find (at Cardinal Mooney),” he said.

He also told them never to be intimidated by classmates or professors who offer “very powerful arguments against our convictions as Christians, as Catholics.”

“Don’t lose confidence,” said the archbishop, and reminded the students not to grow lazy in their faith while away from home, but to continue to serve as a vital part of the Church: “The Church needs your talents. You have so much to contribute.”

The seniors also had an opportunity to ask the archbishop questions, such as “What music do you like to listen to?”

The archbishop told them he enjoys classical music, particularly Bach, but will also listen to The Supremes and Simon and Garfunkel.

The archbishop also offered some advice for vocational discernment: “It has to do with getting to know yourself. What fits with you?” he said.

“God is not going to ask you to do something that is totally contrary to who you are,” he explained. “Think ahead about 60 years … and say to yourself, ‘That was a good way to spend my life.’”

The archbishop also took time to meet with young men open to the priesthood, offering some further vocational advice.

Several classes received short interruptions when Archbishop Vigneron stopped in to say “hello,” even sitting down in a desk during one class, and asking the students how everything was going.

A few students told The Michigan Catholic they really enjoyed the archbishop’s visit that morning.

“I liked how he really connected with the students,” said senior Adam Freeman, while junior Grace Garcia added her appreciation at “how passionate about education he is.”

Garcia added that she liked his coming to preside over Mass with the students, not merely visiting the school.

Eleventh-grader Max Jennings saw the visit as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; we were blessed to have him come. It was cool having him here.”

Rae Peterson, also a junior, found the archbishop “personal with his speech” and “friendly with people.”

Sarah Robinson, a senior, liked how “he came and took time out of his schedule to meet with us,” and 11th-grader Katie Lensmeyer noticed “his appreciation for what we do at our school.”

Other high schools that received pastoral visits from Archbishop Vigneron during the fall semester included St. Mary’s Preparatory, Orchard Lake, on Dec. 10, and University of Detroit Jesuit High School, Detroit, on Dec. 18. He will visit Marian High School, Bloomfield Hills, on Jan. 27, and has plans to visit Notre Dame Prep in Pontiac in February and Divine Child in Dearborn in March.