LAKEVIEW — After gaining international attention for their viral “mini conclave,” a group of Lakeview Catholic school students are in Rome this week, where they met Pope Leo XIV — the first American pope and a Chicago native.

Students from Our Lady of Mount Carmel Academy, 720 W. Belmont Ave., are on a weeklong pilgrimage to Italy that includes attending a papal audience, Sunday Mass at St. Peter’s Square and visits to Assisi and other holy sites.

The field trip is the culmination of a whirlwind year that began when the school’s first- through fourth-graders reenacted the papal conclave in May, just days before the actual election of Pope Leo XIV. A conclave is the process by which cardinals in the Catholic Church elect a new pope.

The children’s play, complete with handmade red mozzett

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