'I felt confirmed': Southwest Houston woman recalls decadeslong friendship with newly elected pope

HOUSOTN, Texas (KTRK) -- While millions of people around the world are learning about the new pope on Thursday, ABC13 talked with a southwest Houston woman who has known him for decades.

"I was ecstatic; I couldn't stop laughing," Judy Connolly explained. "I felt confirmed because everybody in the world thought an American being pope was probably the longest shot you could not bet on."

Connolly is now a chaplain. But, in her 20s, she attended Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, the hometown of the newly elected pope.

"They decided to send me to this Catholic seminary as the first female candidate for Master's of Divinity, which is preparation for the priesthood," she said.

She got her Master's Degree in 1981.

The man then known as Robert or "Bob" Prevost received his degree a year later.

She said they kept in touch even as he spent more than a decade in Peru as a missionary.

"He's taken the name Pope Leo, and this is not accidental; it's reminiscent of Pope Leo XII, who was a great proponent of labor," she said. "He has grown up with an appreciation of one's duty to attend to people of little power and great worth, dignity, and beauty."

Pope Leo isn't the first future pope Connolly has met.

Connolly has a French Press coffee pot in her kitchen that came from her friend, Pope Benedict.

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