COURTESY MARYKNOLL SCHOOLS Seventh-graders at Maryknoll School picked Cardinal Francis Arinze from Nigeria, who garnered 81 percent of the vote. Above, students discussing how best to present their case for Cardinal Arinze are, from left, Adrienne Wu, Lia Cornair, Joanna Lawlor, Kelcie Lau, Brendan Bradley and Rintaro Sato.

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Hawaii students
pick black pontiff

Isle Catholic schools craft
lessons from the papal
selection under way in Rome

It took three ballots to select a new pope Friday in a mock conclave at Maryknoll School.

Seventh-graders Joanna Lawlor and Kelcie Lau campaigned for their candidate with a jingle "White Smoke for a Black Pope!"

Francis Arinze: Maryknoll students choose the Nigerian cardinal

Whether it was their unsubtle politicking or the charisma of Cardinal Francis Arinze, the Maryknoll balloting favored the Nigerian church leader who is considered one of the top papal prospects when the real conclave of cardinals is convened in Rome tomorrow.

Some 81 percent of Heidi McGivern's seventh-grade religion class voted for Arinze and they'll be watching this week to see how the Vatican voting goes.

St. Francis School eighth-graders started a similar balloting process that will be concluded tomorrow in Gina Carnazzo's class, which combines religion, language and social sciences.

The Manoa students have a slate of 12.

Many Catholic schools in the state are using this historical time in the Catholic Church as a teaching opportunity.

The teachers challenged mock conclave participants to think beyond regurgitating what they've read in the media about each candidate. "How can your cardinal help make change in the world?" asked Carnazzo.

The new pope "should be someone open to new ideas," said St. Francis student Erin Uilani Aki.

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CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM Eighth-graders from St. Francis School review the profiles of 16 of the candidates being considered by the Vatican for the new pope.

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Her classmate Chardonnay Pao was lukewarm about Italian Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, who "does not support decentralization" of Vatican power. "We don't want dictatorship," said the youngster.

"Sometimes really, really old people don't know what's happening," said Maryknoll student Joanna Lawlor. "A younger person would know more about what people are thinking."

With all of the cardinals contemporaries of their grandpas, the seventh-graders tended to favor the younger men. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the oldest, was eliminated on first ballot.

Lawlor and Kelcie Lau were among the supporters of the Nigerian candidate. "The church has never had a black leader," said Lau. "He could be like Martin Luther King Jr. Why not give him a chance?"

McGivern said the current events aren't a chapter outside of the curriculum. The Maryknoll seventh-graders are studying the Crusades, the expeditions urged by the Catholic Church to reclaim the Biblical lands of the Middle East, beginning around the 12th century.

"We're looking at the influence of the pope in the Middle Ages," she said. When the students see photographs of the millions of people who went to Rome for Pope John Paul II's funeral "it all becomes clear how so many people could be influenced to follow a pope."