It was the puff of white smoke seen by hundreds of Lawrence schoolchildren.

When word came Tuesday that a new pope had been selected by the conclave of cardinals, students and faculty at the Lawrence Catholic School put aside their studies to watch history as it happened.

At the Lawrence Catholic School Corpus Christi Campus on Tuesday, the Rev. Mick Mulvany gathers children to announce the naming of the new pope.

“We huddled around TVs or computers, so we watched the unfolding of the event,” said Pat Newton, principal of the school, which has 400 elementary-aged students on campuses at St. John the Evangelist and Corpus Christi Catholic churches in Lawrence. “It was pretty exciting.”

It was also, by turns, festive and worshipful.

After Germany’s Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was named Pope Benedict XVI, students joined their teachers and priests in decorating their churches with bunting of yellow and white, the papal colors. In the afternoon, the youngsters were shuttled to services to pray for the new pontiff.

“Christ is the light of the church, that light will shine through the new pope, Pope Benedict,” the Rev. John Schmeidler, St. John’s pastor, told the schoolchildren, and he admonished them: “Remember to keep praying for our pope and for ourselves and for our church.”

Schmeidler, 40, was barely older than the students the last time a new pope was chosen in 1978. At times during the service, he hesitated before pronouncing the new pope’s name.

Students in Debby Crady's third-grade class at the Lawrence Catholic School's Corpus Christi Campus were very excited at the announcement of the new pope Tuesday.

“All those years of saying, ‘John Paul,'” he explained afterward.

Catholicism has the most followers of any religion inn Douglas County, according to one study, which said local congregations claimed 7,364 adherents in 2000 — as many as the Methodists and Lutherans, the second- and third-biggest denominations, combined.

Changes?

Lawrence Catholics were unsure the new 78-year-old pontiff would bring much change to their lives.

“On the local level, the faith is the same,” said the Rev. Mick Mulvany, Corpus Christi’s pastor. “The faith stays the same.”

But some previous popes have overseen revolutions in the ways the church practices and preaches its faith. The Vatican II Council, under Popes John XXIII and Paul VI, did away with the Latin Masses in favor of liturgies using local languages more easily understood by parishioners.

Third-grader Raelei Gillespie waits for the announcement from the Vatican.

The church struggles with other issues today.

American Catholics often are portrayed as divided over the church’s precepts on priestly celibacy, birth control and homosexuality. Local Catholics said that Lawrence is not exempt from the struggles.

“In any big organization, people will debate,” Newton said.

Whether Pope Benedict encourages debate remains to be seen. He is known as a hard-liner, who earlier this week preached a homily against the “dictatorship of relativism.”

A young student celebrates Mass.

Pastoral approach

Schmeidler said John Paul held similar views but balanced them with a “pastoral” approach to the job. He said he hopes Benedict will follow in those footsteps.

“He made strong decisions,” Schmeidler said of John Paul. “But there was (the) sense he listened, then spoke.”

At Kansas University, Bill Keel — chair of Germanic languages and a key participant in Lawrence’s Sister City program with Eutin, Germany — said Germans will be pleased with the selection of their countryman.

“I’m sure that most Germans will be quite proud that one of their sons has been elected pope,” he said, adding: The fact that it’s a pope from the heart of Europe signifies the need to revitalize the church in Europe.”

Back in Lawrence, Mulvany said the transition from one pope to the next has itself been revitalizing.

“I think the thing you see on the local level is this: During all of this — the illness, the death and now the election of a new Holy Father — it gives people a chance to reflect on their own Catholicism,” Mulvany said, adding: “It’s pretty exciting.”

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