As Catholics, we celebrate the Chair of St. Peter each year on February 22. This feast day reminds us to pray for and in gratitude for the Pope who shepherds and leads the Church. At Everest, the day is celebrated with the tradition of the second graders holding a mock-conclave and electing a pope to visit the classrooms and hand out pope-sicles.
Second graders spend time in the chapel praying about who to elect “pope” and reflecting the students in their class who have exhibited the virtues of the month. Each student casts a secret ballot, and then all the ballots are burned outside.
This year’s pope is Jacob Luginski with Swiss Guards Brandon Sandeen and Teddy Sierminski. The pope and his Swiss Guards visited all the classrooms in the high school and academy, sharing blessings, candy, and even blessing for a few babies! The group was escorted from the academy building to the high school building in the “pope mobile.”
