LANSING — A pope with Lansing ties? Not quite.
But newly named Pope Leo XIV did visit Michigan’s capital city at least once, in the early 1970s, to talk about school funding as a student at a Holland-area Catholic high school.
Then known as Robert Prevost, the priest-to-be was secretary of a St. Augustine Seminary High School committee formed to consider: “What should be the policy toward financing elementary and secondary education in the United States?”
A 1972 Holland Sentinel newspaper article briefly mentions the day. Prevost and four other students from St. Augustine’s went to the annual Michigan High School Forensic Association Student Congress. The event lasted for several days.
The future pontiff attended the school in Laketown Township, known today as Felt Mansion and Shore Acres Park, near Saugatuck. It closed later in the 1970s.
A large mansion was built on the property in the 1920s for Dorr Felt, who invented the comptometer — the first commercially successful key-driven mechanical calculator. Felt and his wife built a 12,000-square foot mansion on about 1,000 acres that was purchased, after their deaths, by a St. Augustinian diocese based out of Chicago in 1949. The property was converted into a high school seminary.
The property was purchased by the state of Michigan after the school closed and parts of it became a prison and a state police post. About 950 acres of the land became the Saugatuck Dunes State Park in 1978. The remaining estate was bought by Laketown Township for $1 in 1996, for the public benefit and not to be sold.
The school building, which had served as a prison, was torn down but the mansion was restored, largely in 2007 and 2008. Prevost likely would have been educated in the demolished school building since nuns moved into the mansion in 1968.
Apples – harvesting, storing and selling – would have been a key part of his education.
According to a release from Felt Estate: “The faculty and students (at the seminary) set about learning the mysteries of nature in a practical way; they harvested the apples from the orchards, filled the fruit storage cellars to be used in the future, and had plenty to sell at the local fruit exchange.
“This work on the part of faculty and students was not just a pursuit of knowledge, but an economic necessity. Between the apple harvest and the spring sap run, they learned to endure the rigors of winter with its abundant snowfall. Seminary life revolved around the daily schedule of prayer, school, and work.”
Steven Ringelberg, supervisor and interim manager of Laketown Township, said the connection to a pope adds “even more to the legacy” of the Felt Estate.
Another Holland Sentinel article, from later that same year, recognizes Prevost for his high performing National Merit Scholarship testing results in 1971. Prevost was consistently on the Honor Roll, was editor-in-chief of the yearbook, a National Honor Society member, a student council vice president and secretary, president of the Library Club, member of the Mission Club, a senator at Student Congress in Lansing and president of the senior class.
Who is Robert Prevost?
Robert Francis Prevost, a Chicago native, was selected by the papal conclave on May 8 after two days, elected by the College of Cardinals to succeed Pope Francis, who died April 21 at the age of 88.
Prevost’s selection was a surprise, as he was not among some of the top contenders expected to succeed the progressive, popular Pope Francis. He was ordained in 1981 as a member of the Order of Saint Augustine.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from Villanova University, outside Philadelphia, and a master’s in divinity from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. He also holds a doctorate in canon law.
Prevost was pastor of vocations and director of missions for the Augustinian order in Chicago and worked in Peru for several years teaching canon law. He also served as a parish pastor, diocesan official, seminary teacher and vicar. He served two terms as the head of the Augustinian order, until 2013.
In 2014, Francis appointed him to an administrative post in Peru, and he became bishop there, as well vice president of the Peruvian Bishops Conference until 2023.
His most recent position, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, was a powerful one. He was responsible for selecting bishops. He was elevated by Pope Francis to the rank of Cardinal in September 2023.
Addressing the faithful in St. Peter’s Square in Italian and Spanish, Prevost is the first pope to be a native English speaker.
USA Today contributed to this report. Cassandra Lybrink is the local editor of The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at clybrink@hollandsentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter @CassLybrink.
Contact Mike Ellis at mellis@lsj.com or 517-267-0415
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Pope Leo XIV once visited the state Capitol in Lansing
Reporting by Mike Ellis and Cassandra Lybrink, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
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