Dear Colleagues in Catholic Education,
On the morning of this year’s NCEA President’s Awards Dinner, my first as your president/CEO, news began to circulate that Pope Francis had passed away. It was a sobering way to begin the Easter season. Yet as an Easter people, more than 4,000 Catholic school educators, leaders, partners and exhibitors gathered in Orlando for the NCEA 2025 Convention. We came together as pilgrims of hope, carrying with us the light of the risen Christ.
Just a few weeks later, during a site visit in Minneapolis for NCEA 2026, I found myself standing in the lobby of one of the Convention hotels when phones around me lit up: “White smoke!” Minutes later, my team and our host from the city’s visitor’s bureau sat down for lunch at a local restaurant. Someone asked the server to switch one of the TVs to the news. Suddenly, ten adults, normally busy and multitasking, were glued to one screen waiting for the words: “Habemus Papam.” We have a pope.
Where were you when you heard those words? Who were you with? Across the country, I know conference rooms and classrooms alike were paused in that same moment of anticipation, and that many felt the same rush of emotion as Pope Leo XIV, the first U.S.-born pontiff, stepped onto the balcony of St. Peter’s.
Born in Chicago, a young Robert Prevost was educated in Catholic schools. According to reports, a neighbor once predicted when Robert was in first grade that he would be the first American pope. Many thought it unlikely that a pope could ever come from the United States. And yet, here we are.
What a gift it is to imagine that the next great leader of the Church might be in one of your classrooms today. It could be the quiet student with a deep prayer life, the class clown who brings joy to every room, the altar server who never misses Mass, the frequent visitor to the principal’s office or the curious thinker who asks the big questions. The seeds you are planting matter.
The Holy Father’s motto, “In Illo uno unum” (In the One, we are one) is a reminder of what unites us. In the service of Christ and His church, we unite in faith, in mission, and in our belief in the transformative power of Catholic education. As history is made, may we never stop imagining what is possible.
Sincerely,
Dr. Steven F. CheesemanNCEA President/CEO