“When you meet Pope Leo, can you tell him Natalie says hello?” asked the second grader, who goes to the parish’s Catholic school. And even if he did, a meeting with Pope Leo XIV seemed unlikely. When asked if there might be a chance that the LA priest could meet Pope Leo at his weekly General Audience the next day, Semeraro threw his hands up. “At that time, I didn’t know if I was coming or not,” Gutierrez told Leo. But that meeting with Leo, Gutierrez says, was “the cherry on top of the sundae” after the canonization.