As a native of Michigan, Molly Coppens ’29 is no stranger to using her hand to point out where exactly she grew up in the glove-shaped state.
But she never expected to have that exact conversation with the successor to St. Peter.
“I graduated from an Augustinian high school outside of Detroit and when Pope Leo XIV asked where exactly I’m from, I said ‘I’m from this part of the thumb,’” said Coppens, an Austin Scholar. “And that got everyone laughing because Pope Leo knew what I meant when I said I was from the thumb.”
Coppens was among this year’s Pellegrinaggio group that had an impromptu audience with Pope Leo XIV in the chapel at the Order of St. Augustine’s General Curia just outside the Vatican. Pope Leo met with the group for about 15 minutes, took photos and gave them a papal blessing.
“All the students kept saying ‘He’s so human,’ and it was really important for them to see that you can be a powerful leader and still be warm and authentic,” said Dorie Mansen, associate vice president for mission and ministry.
As the Merrimack group prepared to meet Pope Leo, some were concerned the attire they packed for Pellegrinaggio, generally comfortable clothes and shoes, was not exactly the most appropriate for meeting a pope.
“I just kept telling them to do the best they could clothes-wise because, as they all know, Augustinians are about community and Pope Leo wanted to see us because we are part of the Augustinian family,” Mansen said.
For the Rev. Raymond Dlugos, O.S.A., Ph.D., vice president for mission and ministry, this was the first time he saw his fellow Villanova classmate and Augustinian brother in person since Pope Leo was elected in 2025 as the first U.S.-born pontiff.
“When you see him on television, he is very much Pope Leo, but when I looked him in the eyes, it was Bob, someone I have known for nearly 50 years,” said Fr. Dlugos, referring to the pope’s given name, Robert. “He was very much himself (meeting the Pellegrinaggio group), just gracious as can be and very friendly.”
During the audience, when Fr. Dlugos joked his job at Merrimack College was to watch other people doing all the hard work, Pope Leo quipped his job was very similar.
Following the audience, when the group also presented Pope Leo with a Merrimack College hat, they took part in the Scavi tour of the necropolis beneath St. Peter’s Basilica and the tomb of St. Peter, the first pope.
Ava Melikian ’26 reflected on the profound experience of shaking hands with Pope Leo and being in the presence of St. Peter’s tomb all in the same day.
“This showed me the connection of everything around me, and where I was standing, and I felt so grateful to have had the opportunity to have been in Pope Leo’s presence,” said Melikian, also an Austin Scholar. “It felt like a true moment of solidification of faith for me.”
