Last October, I found myself inside the walls of Vatican City.
The room where our group had gathered was surprisingly understated. A few chairs lined the perimeter, but otherwise it felt almost empty. Its significance lay in what everyone knew was about to happen.
We had been chatting casually while we waited. Then someone asked us to form a circle.
Our easy conversation gave way to quiet anticipation. People settled into place. Every few seconds, someone’s eyes drifted toward the doorway. Only then did I realize my palms were sweating. Standing there, I wondered what I was going to say. Moments like this seem to call for something meaningful, but every idea I considered felt rehearsed.
Then the doors opened.
Pope Leo XIV entered with a warm smile and began greeting each person around the circle. When he reached us, my husband Brian spoke first. He thanked the Pope for his leadership, introduced us as a married couple and shared what the opportunity meant to us. Pope Leo responded warmly before turning toward me.
“Your Holiness,” I said, “I have a very serious question.”
I let the question hang for a moment.
“How did you do at Wordle today?” I asked with a smile.
For a second, he looked surprised. Then he laughed. His shoulders relaxed.
“Today wasn’t good,” he admitted. “It took me six tries.”
“It was a tough one,” I laughed. “It took me six too.”
After greeting the rest of the group, he circled back.
“What was your starting word?”
The exchange lasted just a couple of minutes, but it is the part I have remembered most.
In a room filled with protocol and expectation, I was searching for something wonderfully ordinary.
Last week, Brian and I had the opportunity to spend time with Pope Leo again, this time at the Vatican’s Borgo Laudato Si’ in Castel Gandolfo for the Canticle of Peace, a gathering of music, prayer and reflection.For four centuries, Castel Gandolfo has served as a summer residence for popes, a place removed from the pace of the Vatican where they could rest, pray and reflect. It felt like a fitting setting for an evening devoted to peace and to questions that offer no easy answers.
The gathering marked 800 years since the death of St. Francis of Assisi and drew inspiration from his Canticle of the Creatures. Andrea Bocelli performed alongside ABF Voices, a choir of 164 children and young people from Israel, the West Bank, Uganda, Haiti and Italy. Many came from places marked by war, poverty or suffering. Yet when they sang together, their voices did not erase those differences. They transformed them into harmony.
The program moved through themes of creation, peace, human dignity, faith and unity. There was “Panis Angelicus,” a musical setting of “The Moon of Kyiv,” and a reading from St. Francis. The children’s performance of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” was beautiful, but the moment that struck me most came at the end, when Andrea Bocelli sang “Amazing Grace.”
Hearing him sing the words “was blind, but now I see” carried a power that is difficult to describe. A familiar hymn suddenly felt entirely new. Around him stood children whose lives had been shaped by circumstances they did not choose, singing about grace in a garden created for contemplation. For a few minutes, peace did not feel like an abstraction. It felt present.
After the concert, we had another opportunity to greet Pope Leo. I brought up Wordle again and told him that, just as when we had tied in October, it had taken me six guesses.
He smiled.
“I got it in five.”
There was a quiet delight in his expression. This time, he had bested me.
Brian and I attended both gatherings openly as a married couple. That simple fact mattered to us. We never felt as though we had to explain ourselves. We never felt merely tolerated. We felt welcomed. Before we left, Brian handed Pope Leo Father James Martin’s newest book, “Work in Progress: Confessions of a Busboy, Dishwasher, Caddy, Usher, Factory Worker, Bank Teller, Corporate Tool, and Priest.” Father Martin had already written a personal inscription to the Pope inside. Pope Leo opened it immediately, smiled as he read the message and thanked us.
When I first asked Pope Leo about Wordle, I was not simply trying to break the ice or make a joke. I was trying to connect with him and, perhaps, help him relax in a moment that carried enormous seriousness. For a brief time, the formality fell away. There was no grand statement, only two people comparing an ordinary part of their morning.
Looking back on those two extraordinary days, I think of the children singing together despite the borders and conflicts between their homelands. I think of Andrea Bocelli giving new meaning to a line I had heard countless times. I think of Brian introducing us as husbands and being met with warmth.
And I think of the man carrying the weight of the world, smiling over a five-letter word.
