On March 13, St. John Vianney seminarians went into full celebratory mode when Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was named as the new leader of the Catholic Church, but it wasn’t as over the top as in previous pontiff elections.

The Rev. Erich Rutten, the Chaplain and Director of St. Thomas’ Campus Ministry, said the celebrations were a great thing for everyone on campus, both Catholics and non-Catholics.

“I think that a lot of times, people in the church, particularly seminarians, get painted as pious-types and boring people that don’t like to have any fun,” Rutten said. “I don’t think that’s true. So what you saw in this case was people having fun.”

There were, however, a few guidelines that the SJV seminarians had to follow to make sure that their fun didn’t upset others.

In 2005, the SJV seminarians celebrated Pope Benedict XVI’s election on top of their dorm roof, something that neighbors and Public Safety were concerned with. At 9:20 p.m. on April 19, 2005, Public Safety responded to a noise complaint at SJV.

“Several seminarians were excessively noisy while celebrating on the roof of the building,” Public Safety stated in a 2005 edition of the Aquin, the former St. Thomas news publication.

In the Aquin article, Michael Johnson, a St. Thomas alumni who graduated in 2005, claimed that the celebrations went too far when Benedict XVI was named pope.

“The night of and day after Cardinal Ratzinger’s election to be the new pontiff, I watched the news and saw the University of St. Thomas seminarians cheering as if they were at a local football game: rowdy as any drunk fan cheering on their favorite team,” Johnson said.

But Christiana Bye, who was in her third year at St. Thomas in 2006, disagreed with Johnson’s opinion.

“I was bothered by Michael Johnson’s comparing the seminarians with drunken football fans. I am not a seminarian, but this comparison is just plain foolish. Mr. Johnson clearly does not understand the joy that comes from Christ’s Church,” Bye stated in a letter to the editor. “I have great respect for our seminarians and their ‘noisy’ celebration was in the name of Christ’s vicar and he no doubt shared in their celebration.”

Not looking to repeat last election’s mishaps or to cause injury as the SJV roof is in need of repairs, Rector Fr. Michael Becker informed the seminarians this year that they needed to stay off the roof. However, they climbed onto the Arches.

Senior Cole Daily, a SJV resident adviser, said he and his three fellow resident advisers were responsible for organizing this year’s celebrations.

“When I came to St. Thomas, I heard legends of this pope party they did in 2005, and I heard about Public Safety shutting it down,” Daily said. “We definitely wanted to do something big this year. Our point wasn’t to make Public Safety mad, but we wanted to do something that was really cool, exciting and fun.”

Mike Barrett, the associate director and manager of investigations of Public Safety, said this year, the seminarians did not get in any trouble, even for being on top of the arches. But they were “advised” by Public Safety as to what they could and couldn’t do.

“We gave Public Safety our names and told them that we were willing to accept whatever consequences there were,” Daily said. “When we were up on the arches, we were only there for a few minutes. We didn’t want to make a big scene about it and make things hard on Public Safety. We tried to cooperate with them as much as we could.”

Daily said Public Safety understood because a papal conclave is such a rare occasion and the seminarians were so open about what their plans were. Senior Nick Froehle, who is also a seminarian, said things went much more smoothly this year than they did in 2005.

“Public Safety did express a little bit of concern, but we were very forthright with them. The (resident advisers) in charge were very open,” Froehle said. “I think that Public Safety was very appreciative of that.”

In reflecting upon why celebrating is important, Daily said it came down to love.

“Ultimately, it’s because we love the pope,” Daily said. “We want to show people how awesome the pope is, how awesome authority is in the Church and how that’s really the seal of our faith.”

The love of Daily and his fellow seminarians resulted in a joyous celebration, which pleasantly surprised Froehle. Froehle was in a Catholic studies class when the papal conclave ended. One of his fellow seminarians received a text, turned around to Froehle and said “Habemus Papam, We have a Pope!”

A cheer erupted in the classroom. Froehle and the other seminarians in class asked their professor if they had permission to leave class, to which he responded “absolutely.” Froehle said they ran the entire way back to SJV to take part in the festivities.

“I was blown away about the amount of joy that erupted really quickly after the white smoke went up. It was a very moving experience,” Froehle reflected. “It was a great expression of the Catholic identity that this school upholds to.”

Fr. Sebastien Bakatu, a spiritual director for the SJV Seminary, said communities celebrate the election of political leaders who often divide the masses and negatively campaign against their competitors. Because of this, he thinks that it is even more fitting that we celebrate the choosing of a pope, who tries to unify his fellow Catholics under God.

“I think it’s a great and wonderful thing for our young people here to express their joy of knowing that finally the church has another leader,” Bakatu said.

Daily said all Catholic schools celebrate the appointing of a new leader, but he thinks that the sense of pride at St. Thomas is unique.

“From my experience with seminarians at other colleges, I don’t think any of them are as crazy or think as big as SJV,” Daily said. “Other seminarians had a little get together. But we decided to go all out and make it awesome.”

Maggie Whitacre can be reached at whit0467@stthomas.edu.