'I felt heard': Catholic school teacher recalls life-changing talk with future pope

Days before he was elected, Pope Leo XIV (then Cardinal Robert F. Prevost) received a ringing endorsement from a Catholic school teacher in New Jersey — one the pope-to-be apparently read just hours before entering the conclave at which he would be chosen.

At the end of April, the Augustinian order’s Province of St. Thomas of Villanova published a reflection by theology instructor Brendan Towell on a life-changing conversation he’d had in 2010 with the Augustinian priest who would become pope.

In the summer of 2010, Towell — a theology teacher at St. Augustine Preparatory School, an independent, all-boys Catholic school in southern New Jersey operated by the Augustinians’ St. Thomas Province — was both a chaperone and pilgrim during the weeklong Augustinian Youth Encounter in Suffolk, England.

Pope Leo XIV, the former Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, appears on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican May 8, 2025, following his election during the conclave. He is the first American pope in history. (OSV News photo/Claudia Greco, Reuters)

Amid the gathering’s prayer, liturgies and formation, he met and spoke with then-Father Prevost, who at the time was prior general of the worldwide Augustinian Order.

Despite a brief previous meeting, the youth encounter was Towell’s first chance to have what he called “a real conversation” with then-Father Prevost.

Towell told OSV News he’d sought out the priest amid a difficult time.

“I was discerning a vocation. I was struggling and I was probably all over the place when I was talking to him,” Towell recalled.

In his reflection — published online during the last week of April by the Augustinians’ St. Thomas Province, which operates St. Augustine Prep — Towell said the future pope impressed him not with words, but something even more profound.

“I don’t even remember all the things that he said or that I said,” Towell told OSV News. “I just remember how I felt, and I felt heard. I felt listened to.”

More specifically, it was how then-Father Prevost listened that was so striking, Towell said in his reflection.

“Despite the busyness of the week, the weight of his responsibilities, and the symbolic importance of his presence at this historic gathering, Father Prevost gave me his time and his attention,” he wrote. “In a world that often rushes past the individual heart, he made mine feel seen.”

Towell also mused that the priest also “embodied with quiet confidence” a sense of unity, rooted in the Augustinian charism, that bonded the pilgrims from 18 countries.

The years after that 2010 Augustinian Youth Encounter — which saw Towell embrace marriage and family life, while the priest took on increasingly greater responsibilities in his order and in church hierarchy — only confirmed Towell’s intuition that he had spoken with a future pope.

In his reflection ahead of the conclave, Towell wrote, “Looking back, and watching his continued service in the Church, first as bishop in Peru, now as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, I can’t help but think: an Augustinian would make an excellent pope.”

And, he said, “it seems to me that more of the Augustinian charism is what our Church needs today. It’s a particular spirituality that is deeply communal, yet rooted in personal interiority. It seeks unity without uniformity. It loves the truth of God without sacrificing the love of one’s neighbor. It’s grounded in history while open to the Spirit’s new movements. Fr. (now-Cardinal) Robert Prevost exemplifies this.”

On May 6, Towell received confirmation from his friend Father Joseph Farrell, the Augustinian order’s American vicar general, that he had shared the article with then-Cardinal Prevost.

“And he (Father Farrell) said, ‘Cardinal Prevost read your reflection. He was honored and humbled and asked you to pray for him,'” Towell told OSV News.

Towell and his students watched when the new pope was announced after the conclave’s second day.

“We were all really primed. … I waited, I held my breath and then all it took was the last name,” he said. “And I didn’t even hear what papal name he chose because I jumped out of my chair. The students were screaming. And then I had to quiet everybody down to hear, what was his name, what was his name?”

Towell admitted, “I actually teared up.”

Now, the Catholic education advocate and public speaker has another message to share with a word where — as St. Augustine himself famously observed — “our hearts are restless.

“So Pope Leo is going to teach us how to find that rest in the Lord,” said Towell.