May 13, 2025 // Diocese

Deacon Monnin to Chant Gospel at Pope Leo’s Inauguration Mass

Scott Warden

Editor-In-Chief

In the coming weeks, Deacon Nicholas Monnin will wrap up his academic year at the Pontifical North American College in Rome and fly home to South Bend, where he will be ordained by Bishop Rhoades as a priest for the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend at St. Matthew Cathedral on Saturday, June 7.

Before then, he will add to what is already an impressive list of memorable moments from his time living, studying,
and serving the Church in Rome.

Deacon Monnin told Today’s Catholic that he has been chosen to chant the Gospel reading at the Mass for the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV’s Petrine ministry in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, May 18.

Within the last month, the seminarian of the diocese has been a regular figure at papal liturgies, as he participated in the chanting of the Passion at Palm Sunday Mass at St. Peter’s Square and, a week later, chanted the Exsultet, or Easter Proclamation, at the Easter Vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Provided by Deacon Nicholas Monnin
Deacon Nicholas Monnin takes a selfie from a crowded St. Peter’s Square as people await the announcement of a new pope after white smoke began billowing from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel on Thursday, May 8.

“I got an email from the director of the Sistine Chapel Choir, who I’ve been working with this year, the same person who asked me to sing for Palm Sunday and the Exsultet at the Easter Vigil,” Deacon Monnin told Today’s Catholic in a phone interview on Tuesday, May 13. “He said, ‘Would you be available to sing the Chant of the Gospel for the Mass for the beginning of Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate?’ And of course, I responded right away to that email. I said, ‘I’ll be there!’ … So, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., I had gone from having a normal Sunday to having just a really beautiful opportunity to celebrate with the U.S. Church and celebrate with the whole Church. It’s been really humbling. I went and rehearsed with the director yesterday, and it’s just really wonderful that I’ve been asked to do this.”

Deacon Monnin continued: “One of the things I’m looking forward to is that I hope I get like a 15-second one-on-one with the Holy Father, which is typical before these big papal Masses, and I hope I get to ask him to pray for our diocese and to greet him. In South Bend, we consider ourselves to be a part of Chicagoland, so I’ll probably make some joke about how we’re neighbors, basically, with Pope Leo.”

Deacon Monnin said the scene in St. Peter’s Square – and at the North American College – was jubilant on the evening of Pope Leo’s election.

“I had come from class in the evening, and I was making my way to the basilica, and as I got closer, I had the sense that I needed to pick up my pace a little bit to try to get to St. Peter’s,” Deacon Monnin said. “I got there at about 5:15 p.m., and there were two or three people between me and the square when the place erupted as the white smoke started going up. Then everyone began pushing trying to get in the square, and it was just pandemonium – like, everyone is just so happy. People were weeping and cheering and singing songs, and it was really a wonderful thing. … As soon as the curtain moved for the cardinals and the new pope to come out to the loggia, the place just erupted. I was very touched by the way Pope Leo spoke. He just spoke with such gentleness but also with such strength.”

When the name of the cardinal who had been elected pope was announced in Latin, the English speakers around Deacon Monnin caught the name before he did – Cardinal Robert Prevost. “And I said, ‘Why do I know that name?’” Deacon Monnin said. “Well, Cardinal Prevost celebrated Thanksgiving at the NAC this past year. He celebrated Mass and had Thanksgiving dinner with us. It was a blessing then, but now it’s an even greater blessing. He was the future Pope Leo!”

Deacon Monnin said what the American seminarians at the NAC remember about the visit is that then-Cardinal Prevost asked the rector if he could have a couple of pieces of pumpkin pie to take with him.

“I mean, he was – he is – an American living in Rome, and the Italians don’t know how to make pumpkin pie; it’s kind of a weird thing for them,” Deacon Monnin said. “So, it’s always the seminarians and the priests who make all the pies for the house because we have a sense of how to make it. Pumpkin pie is impossible to find in Rome, so I’m trying to convince the bakers in the house to send a pie over to the Vatican for him on Thanksgiving.”

After his ordination to the priesthood on June 7 in South Bend, Deacon Monnin will return to Rome in September to finish up his studies before beginning his ministry as a parish priest in the summer of 2026. He said that it’s difficult to predict how his incredible experiences serving the Church in Rome will affect his priesthood, but he’s eager to serve the Church at the dawn of Pope Leo’s pontificate.

“It’s also cool to see my love for the pope coming out in this newness, in this fresh outpouring of remembering the way that the Lord works in His Church by choosing men to serve and to be Christ’s vicar on earth, and how humbling that is for them, and how wonderful it is for the Church,” Deacon Monnin said. “I think it’s really been an opportunity to have a renewal of hope. I mean, it’s a Jubilee Year of Hope, and this allows you to look to the future in a particular way. We have a young pope who is excited and joyful, and I think that is really attractive for people. It’s a great sign of hope.”

“I’ll be a young priest, hopefully joyful in the same way, and I hope to be a sign of hope, too, as I step into a new phase of my own life and grow into that. There are going to be some growing pains for me, as I’m sure there’s been growing pains for Pope Leo. But I’m looking forward to that adventure, coming to follow the Lord in a new way and in a new state of my life.”

Scott Warden is editor-in-chief of Today’s Catholic.