Newly elected pontiff visited Grosse Pointe parish during his time as Augustinian prior, was college classmates with Detroit priest
SHELBY TOWNSHIP — St. Peter’s Square erupted in cheers when Cardinal Dominique Mamberti, the cardinal proto-deacon, announced Pope Leo XIV had been elected the 267th pontiff of the Catholic Church.
Back in Shelby Township, Michigan, Fr. Ronald Essman was in his recliner when he perked up with a shock.
“Is that Bob Prevost?”
One could forgive the informal reference to Pope Leo XIV, but Fr. Essman knew the Holy Father long before he was crowned supreme pontiff.
Back in 1974, Bob Prevost was just another fellow seminarian at the Augustinian-run Villanova University in Philadelphia. Now, Fr. Essman's classmate is the pope.
“I almost had a heart attack,” said Fr. Essman, a senior priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit who celebrates weekend Masses at St. Paul of Tarsus Parish in Clinton Township and St. Therese of Lisieux Parish in Shelby Township. “I was sitting in my big soft chair here and, of course, we saw the white smoke, and they were all saying it would be an hour or so before the new pope was named. So I’m sitting here and the doors open up, and the cardinal comes out and announces the new pope, and I see in the background: ‘Is that Bob Prevost?’”
Fr. Essman roared in approval of the cardinals’ choice of his Villanova classmate as the new pope.
Fr. Essman, a Milwaukee native, joined the Order of St. Augustine after graduating from the Augustinian-run St. Francis de Sales High School in Milwaukee.
His original plan was to be a professed brother for the order, but his superiors sent him to Villanova for further studies in preparation for the priesthood.
Fr. Essman lived with the professed Augustinians in a different wing from the seminarians, but he prayed, studied and ate right next to the man who would become Pope Leo XIV.
“He was one of the seminarians who was very intelligent, a great guy to be with,” Fr. Essman said. “You could have a nice conversation with him, and he was just a really nice guy. I’m sure he graduated with a 4.0 (grade point average). He was so personable and just a wonderful person to be around.”
Fr. Essman and the future pope's paths diverged after they graduated from Villanova in 1977.
Prevost entered the novitiate for the Order of St. Augustine in St. Louis, while Essman, already a solemnly professed Augustinian, went to the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago to continue his priestly studies, becoming ordained in 1980 in his home parish in Burlington, Wis.
Fr. Essman was assigned to serve at St. Clare of Montefalco Parish in Grosse Pointe Park, which at the time was staffed by the Order of St. Augustine. Fr. Essman served at St. Clare for three years before discerning out of the Augustinians and becoming an archdiocesan priest.
Fr. Essman was incardinated into the Archdiocese of Detroit by Cardinal Edmund C. Szoka in 1986, but maintains a connection with the Augustinians and frequently refers to the writings of St. Augustine in his homilies.
“I just think Bobby (Pope Leo XIV) is going to be a great, great pope,” Fr. Essman said. “His style of ministry, his personality and openness, he exudes what it means to be an Augustinian.”
“St. Augustine was a great doctor of the Church, with an emphasis on community, one heart, one mind,” Fr. Essman continued. “I felt welcomed by them and their openness to brotherhood, whether you are a priest or a brother, you were always treated as an equal.”
The Midwest Augustinians’ historic presence at St. Clare of Montefalco Parish means priests who ministered there ran in the same circles as the man who would become Pope Leo XIV.
Fr. Joe McCormick, OSA, pastor of St. Bernard Parish in Homer Glen, Ill., previously served at St. Clare of Montefalco from 1995 to 2002, overlapping with Pope Leo XIV’s time as prior provincial for the Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel in Chicago from 1999 to 2001, before the future pontiff was promoted to prior general, the top authority for the worldwide Order of St. Augustine.
“You know we were all thrilled by his election as pope,” Fr. McCormick said. “Bob, I’m still calling him Bob. Bob and I had been in the Midwest Augustinians for about 50 years, and we’re not that big of a province community, so we all know one another.”
As a prior provincial, Pope Leo XIV would visit all the Augustinian apostolates in the province, including accompanying Fr. McCormick during his time as pastor at St. Clare of Montefalco.
“When I was pastor there in Grosse Pointe, when Bob was our provincial, he was invaluable for me,” Fr. McCormick said. “I was having some difficulties in terms of stress, anxiety, and some personal stuff. He went out of his way — I mean hundreds of miles — to spend time with me, to support me, listen to me, and offer guidance. He’s a wonderful guy I’ve known for about 50 years.”
Over that half-century, Fr. McCormick witnessed a man who “had a real strong faith,” who was really good at listening, and is “very much cut from the same cloth as Pope Francis.”
“His personality is a little bit more measured or reserved than some extroverted types, yet he is very affable and gets along well,” Fr. McCormick said. “He takes stuff in. He doesn’t react; he reflects on it, and then responds. He is very attuned to the threads within society, what’s going on culturally. He is very sharp in that way.”
Whether it was driving down Interstate 94 from Chicago to Detroit to accompany a priest in need, or standing for the poor and downtrodden as bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, Fr. McCormick said Pope Leo XIV always had a sense of accompaniment about him, being right where God needed him to be.
“We’re called to accompany one another, not to be judges, not to necessarily fix things or fix people, but to accompany them on their journey,” Fr. McCormick said. “We Augustinians have a famous saying of St. Augustine, ‘Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in you.’ And we see our spiritual journey as a kind of restless search for God. And you know with all the ups and downs involved in that, you hopefully learn to walk with one another on those distinctive personal journeys.”
Fr. McCormick continued to communicate with the future pontiff throughout his 12 years as prior general for the Augustinians and later as apostolic administrator and bishop of Chiclayo.
The morning after Pope Leo XIV was elected, Fr. McCormick was taken aback when, celebrating Mass at his parish, he invoked his friend's name in the canon for the first time.
“We mention the pope’s name every time we say Mass, and it kind of stuck in my throat this morning, ‘Leo,’” Fr. McCormick said. “You know, I wanted to say Bob. It’s just hard to believe. If you can imagine a member of your own family, a sibling, suddenly becoming the pope. At least for today, I know the most famous person in the world. It’s incredible.”
The Augustinians left St. Clare of Montefalco Parish in 2012, reducing the order’s footprint in the Archdiocese of Detroit to Austin Catholic High School in Chesterfield Township, where there are no members of the order on staff, but the charism of the Augustinians remains strong.
The school, sponsored by the Augustinians, takes tremendous pride that one of their own has been elected pope.
“What an amazing time to be part of the worldwide Augustinian community,” said Joseph Anlauf, Austin's president. “We rejoice in welcoming Pope Leo, a faithful son of the Augustinian order, as the new leader of the Catholic Church. His dedication to the values of truth, unity and love — cornerstones of our mission at Austin Catholic High School — inspires our community to seek wisdom, foster togetherness and serve with compassion.”
Anlauf highlighted Pope Leo's own time studying at Augustinian institutions such as Villanova University and St. Augustine Seminary High School in Holland, Michigan, saying Austin Catholic is “poised to align itself with Pope Leo’s leadership and vision for the future of the Church — deepening our shared commitment to faith and education for the greater glory of God.”
For Augustinians near and far, having one of their own as pope is something no one expected, but all are now elated to share the man they claim with the rest of the world.
“He really is a citizen of the world,” Fr. McCormick said. “Even though he’s an American, he has dual citizenship with Peru, where he was for a couple of decades. But as head of our Augustinian order, the Augustinian friars are in almost 50 countries, and he visited all of them. So he is really well-traveled and knows the world. They called him the ‘most un-American of the American cardinals,’ because of his expansive service, but just like any Augustinian, he goes where he is called.”
