When Christina Lamas called me in August and invited me to moderate the conversation with the Holy Father, a phrase immediately came to my mind for how I’d like the hour with Pope Leo to unfold: with ease. I wanted it to flow smoothly, logistically of course, but also conversationally.
I wanted both him and I, and the five young people, and the thousands inside Lucas Oil Stadium, and the millions more watching around the world, to feel as if we were all sitting down in a comfy room and just having a chat. I wanted it to feel easy, knowing full well the hard work we’d all put in. I wanted it to be familiar and natural, so that it could be profoundly inspiring as the Vicar of Christ spoke with the young church.
A moment of ease
There’s a moment in every interview that I wait for, hoping I’ll be able to spot it quickly and hold onto it for the rest of the conversation. It’s the moment when my guest settles in, and it becomes easy. They subtly lean back in their chair, or rest their elbows on the desk or table where they’re sitting. They get comfortable, relaxed, knowing it’s good that we are there, talking together, sharing our hearts.
In the case of one (quite famous) guest, she pulled her leg up into her chair and crouched throughout our chat. She got cozy, and then proceeded to stay in the studio for over an hour. Another time, a guest clearly had someone standing at his office door, and when I said it was OK if he needed a minute to handle the distraction, he ushered his son over, introduced us, and then quickly chatted with him about a homework assignment before returning to our conversation. They settle in and I know they feel safe, they’re sharing authentically and I have the privilege of guiding us through.
I was hoping we’d get a “settle in” moment with our Holy Father during the historic live conversation we would have at the National Catholic Youth Conference. I prayed for it, prepared for it and kept a close eye to see when it would happen.
And this past Friday morning, in Lucas Oil Stadium, in front of 16,000 young people with millions more watching around the world, at about the 24-minute mark, we got it. I knew Pope Leo had settled in. He leaned back in his chair as Chris, a young man from Las Vegas, Nevada, shared about sometimes scrolling endlessly on his phone, and how he and other young people could navigate using the modern tech we all have in healthy, and maybe even Godly, ways.
As Pope Leo listened, he softly smiled, and leaned back in his chair. A chair, mind you, that was set up in a room in the Apostolic Palace, thousands of miles away in Rome. But a chair that somehow also felt like it was just his comfy couch, and we were all sitting down, right there, for a chat with our Papa.
Preparing for a virtual encounter
Through the marvel of technology, the beautiful collaboration between Vatican Media, the National Federation of Catholic Youth Ministry, and EWTN, and the heartfelt questions asked by young people selected from around the country to represent their peers, somehow, a football stadium in Indianapolis and a room in the Vatican felt like a familiar, warm and welcoming living room.
Hours upon hours were spent preparing for this moment, with a precision to the details that I can’t even begin to fully capture. Numerous Zoom calls were held, mostly with dozens of teenagers from around the country, listening to their stories, their thoughts, and compiling their questions and what they’d like to share with the pope directly.
Those conversations were the jumping off point for our questions and the themes of the conversation, crafted in collaborations so that the voices of many teens would be heard as we spoke with Pope Leo. Multiple tech checks were run, with new technology incorporated for camera angles and direct feeds, including triple back-ups in case there was a glitch, double feeds for audio, and even talk of setting up a dedicated satellite at one point, just to be safe.
There were meetings with the Holy Father himself, to get a sense of what he hoped would come from this encounter, and to gauge his willingness to do something new and fresh with the young church of today. He was not only willing, he was thrilled.
A special conversation
And it all paid off, many times over, when at the 24-minute mark, after all the formal greetings and the raucous cheers, with a few opening dad jokes about socks (White Sox) and Wordle (entirely off the cuff because he had no idea how I was going to set him up to begin the conversation), and then after answering a couple questions from two amazing teens, Mia and Ezequiel, and my totally spontaneous “tell me about what you do when you’re distracted” question that I knew would help us segue into the next part of the conversation, Pope Leo leaned back, smiled and settled in.
I knew we had him. He was at ease, and so were we.
Pope Leo wasn’t just off in Rome, fitting us in on the list of “things to do” on his Friday afternoon (which, if you look closely, appears to also include a haircut, if his buzzed hair on Saturday morning is any indication of his after-NCYC plans). He was with us, live, and so happy to be there, and it truly felt like an in-person experience.
As it unfolded, and we moved from topic to topic, and the conversation flowed easily and without any glitches, I couldn’t help but think to myself: “This is all I wanted. Sure, someday I want this to happen in person, with the pope visiting America and showing us his energy and heart and dynamism here, but, my goodness, this is happening right now, and everyone around the world is experiencing what we are experiencing with us: the warmth, humor, kindness and wisdom of the remarkable man the Lord has given to us in this moment in our church.”
I could write a thousand words about the “vibes” of the conversation we had with Pope Leo at the National Catholic Youth Conference. The entire stadium was simultaneously electric and buzzing, emotional and deeply moved, perfectly still and locked in, and warm and inviting.
Teens were taking notes. Adults were snapping photos. Bishops were nodding along to answers. Everyone was smiling. Every young person I spoke to after had a different key line that stuck out to them from what the pope had shared, and every adult was challenged to do what the Holy Father had just done: talk with and share authentically with those around us. People from far and wide, around the world, were blowing up my phone, because those not in Lucas Oil Stadium were watching and hearing it just like us, and the pope was speaking to them, too.
Fruits of the dialogue
If the ultimate fruit of this hour with our Holy Father is that we’ll all talk and listen more to one another, then praise the Lord. If the pope can dialogue with young people, and share wisdom and advice while listening to what they’re experiencing in their day-to-day, then we all can.
If the pope can settle in and become entirely comfortable with an authentic conversation that cuts right to the heart, then maybe all of us can be just as vulnerable and open to true encounters that aren’t just a show or performance, but are an exchange — true heart speaks to heart moments that can change lives. And if, beyond that, young people come to more fully realize that they are called to know Jesus personally, talk to him intimately, prioritize him daily, and share him boldly, then even better.
Upon concluding our visit with the Holy Father, I stepped off the stage and just soaked in the moment, looking around the room at the smiles on everyone’s faces. And as tears began to well up in my eyes, the emotion of the moment finally fully hitting me now that the hard part was over, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, beaming, pulled me into a hug. “With such ease, my dear!” he proclaimed. “Fantastic!”
Katie Prejean McGrady is a speaker, author, and host of “The Katie McGrady Show” on the Catholic Channel on Sirius XM. She lives in Louisiana with her husband, daughters and a grumpy old dog, working on podcasts (“Ave Explores” and the OSV Original podcast “Like a Mother”), writing and occasionally traveling to share the Gospel.
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