WARREN, Mich. (WXYZ) — The first-ever pope from the United States has a personal connection to local Catholic school leader Brother Ken Kalinowski, the principal of De La Salle Collegiate in Warren.
Kalinowski knew Pope Leo XIV during their time together at Villanova University near Philadelphia and has even kept a gift from him all these years later that hangs over his desk.
Watch the report in the video player below:
"Father Bob was the jovial, friendly, what you saw is what you got. He was just so charismatic," Kalinowski said.
Kalinowski grew up in metro Detroit and received a full-ride scholarship to Villanova University. During his time at the university, Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, or as Kalinowski and his classmates at Villanova knew him, Father Bob, is remembered with absolute fondness.
"He would just pick tables and just sit with different kids every day and just a delight," Kalinowski said. "His whole thing was working for the good of the poor and making sure that the least, the last and the lost are not forgotten.”
The now-principal of the all-boys Catholic high school says there’s one instance they shared together that he keeps with him to this day. After his grandmother died in the 1980s, he missed mass for two weeks. Father Bob was there to help.
“He goes 'Ken, I haven’t seen you at mass' and I said 'Father, with my grandmother passing, I think Jesus is on vacation.' Well few days later, there was a picture of Jesus in a frame in a box and he left it at my dorm door and I still have it hanging in my office. And it said, 'Jesus has returned and he wants you to come back,'" Kalinowski said.
Kalinowski has kept that picture from the now-Pope Leo XIV during his time as a missionary in Papua New Guinea, to serving in Kenya and Mexico City and now in Warren inside his office at the high school, not knowing his gift is from the holiest of old friends.
“He cared and he took the time, and that’s the thing. He takes the time for everybody. He’s a very genuine person," Kalinowski said. "A very humble man."
The high school principal says the students were elated to hear an American had been announced as pope on Thursday and is hopeful about the future.
“We are the largest Catholic high school in Macomb County and all of them are excited about a new pope and I'm thinking what great hope for our young," he said.
