In 2023, Fr. Brian Barker attended the installation of then-Bishop Robert Prevost as a cardinal (Submitted photo).

Fr. Brian Barker of the Diocese of Belleville was honored and humbled to be invited to the Papal Mass of Installation and to be part of a private audience with the new head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State on May 18 in Rome.

This was the day Fr. Barker’s close, longtime friend, Cardinal Robert Prevost, was installed as the new pope, Pope Leo XIV.

Fr. Barker is the pastor at St. Joseph in Marion and St. Paul in Johnston City, and he serves as chaplain at Camp Ondessonk in Ozark.

Prior to leaving for the trip to Rome, he said he was bringing a handful of rosaries that parishioners had asked him to have the pope bless.

“I told them at all three Masses last weekend,” Fr. Barker said, ‘I’m bringing you guys with me, too. You are also there in your prayers and your hopes and your dreams and your intentions. You are going with me.’”

Fr. Barker traveled with five or six other priests, all Augustinians from Chicago, whom he knew when he was a member of the Order of St. Augustine. He has been a priest in the diocese since 1994 and was the first ordination of former Bishop Wilton Gregory.

“When I taught at a Catholic high school in Tulsa (Okla.), every year I would take kids from our school to Peru to where (Prevost) was a bishop,” Fr. Barker said. “He would help with a mission trip experience for our students.”

Fr. Barker has known the new pope for a long time, he said.

“We went to the same high school, and we went to the same college — Villanova,” Fr. Barker said. “He was four years ahead of me so we weren’t in school at the same time as students together, but he would come back to visit. We kept in touch.”

About Pope Leo XIV, Fr. Barker said: “The guy is brilliant. He speaks four different languages, at least.  I just knew he was going places. I wasn’t surprised when he was elected prior general of the Order of St. Augustine in Rome. It didn’t surprise me when he was made a bishop.”

Two years ago, Fr. Barker went to Rome when Pope Leo was installed as a cardinal.

“At the end of the ceremony, my buddy and I said he has a good chance of becoming the pope,” Fr. Barker said. “He was only 67 years old at that time. He spent a third of his life in the U.S., a third of his life in Peru and a third of his life in Rome. He is really connected. A lot of the cardinals know him, from all parts of the world, from his different assignments.”

Fr. Barker also is friends with one of the new pope’s brothers, John, who lives in Chicago.

“I keep in touch with John,” Fr. Barker said. “John mentioned to me that he’s not sure how often he will get to see his brother, Bob, now.”

When he heard his friend was chosen as the pope to succeed Pope Francis, Fr. Barker was driving from his parish in Marion to Johnston City for a funeral.

“I was listening to it on the radio as I was heading up to Johnston City. When I left Marion, the white smoke had already been blowing. So, I knew it was going to be any minute. I found out while I was driving to St. Paul,” Fr. Barker said

“I just started crying. I couldn’t believe it, you know? It is such a great thing.”

He added that this connection — his friendship with Pope Leo XIV — has brought joy to the two parishes.

“They are so excited they have this connection now,” Fr. Barker said. “It’s like being closer to the pope than they have ever had been before.

“After Mass, they were saying, ‘We are so proud of you and congratulations.’ It’s kind of overwhelming.

“Because of my connection, they now feel more connected to the universal church. Sometimes we get wrapped up in our own parish, and we forget that Catholic means universal; it means the whole world.

“So now, they have this stronger kind of bond with the bigger church. And that’s a great thing.”

(For more information, check out the reports from three television news stations that featured Fr. Barker the week of the pope’s announcement: KSDK-Channel 5 in St. Louis, WSIL-Channel 3 in southern Illinois and KFVS-Channel 12 in Cape Girardeau, Mo.)