The Rev. Jamie Dennis traveled from Owensboro to the Vatican this month to meet Pope Leo XIV, a moment he had spent years hoping might one day happen. For Dennis, pastor of St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church, the meeting carried extra significance. Dennis is nearly blind and had long wondered whether a trip to Rome would be worthwhile if the closest he could get to the pope was hearing his voice through a loudspeaker.
“If I was going to go to Rome, I wanted to meet the pope,” Dennis said. “Otherwise, I would just be hearing his voice through a speaker, and I can do that at home by listening to him on TV.”
Last week, after a series of events Dennis describes as providential, that opportunity became reality.
Dennis traveled to Italy with parishioner Kristi McCabe, her family, and his longtime friend Anna Rose. On June 3, the group found themselves seated just feet from the first American pope before Dennis was able to spend nearly two minutes speaking with him one-on-one.
“Kristi and I were like, ‘Oh my gosh, we did this. We were here. We talked to him,’” Dennis said. “I mean, the rest of the day we were just glowing. We just could not believe it actually happened.”
The trip capped a significant year for Dennis, who recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood and will turn 40 later this year.
But the story behind the trip began long before Pope Leo’s election.
Dennis has retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye condition that causes the loss of peripheral vision. Unlike macular degeneration, which affects central vision first, retinitis pigmentosa gradually narrows a person’s field of view.
“What I have left is like looking through a very tiny pinhole,” Dennis said. “And what I can see through that is absolutely not clear at all.”
The condition has shaped much of his life. Dennis said he was the first blind student to complete the Grayson County public school system rather than attend the Kentucky School for the Blind full-time. He later became the first blind seminarian at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in Indiana.
Today, he serves as pastor of St. Mary Magdalene, managing the parish and staff independently.
“There’s maybe a handful of blind priests in our country, and even fewer of us are pastors,” Dennis said.
For years, he had thought about visiting Rome, but always came back to the same question.
“If I’m going to go, I want to meet the pope,” Dennis said. “But the question is, how do I do that?”
That question resurfaced after Pope Francis died and Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected Pope Leo XIV in May.
“Lo and behold, we have an American pope,” Dennis said. “What are the chances? And I thought, this must be the one that I’m supposed to meet.”
Dennis began discussing the idea with McCabe, a parishioner and writer who had previously written for a Catholic publication. Through contacts she had developed, they identified a cardinal who might be willing to help.
Both wrote letters explaining Dennis’ situation and his hope of meeting the pope.
“To our shock, he responded,” Dennis said.
Dennis explained that simply attending a papal audience from a distance would not provide the experience he was seeking.
“I told him I could go over there, but just hearing his voice through a speaker, for me as a blind person, that’s just not going to get it,” Dennis said.
The cardinal promised to see what he could do. What followed happened quickly.
Dennis said most trips of this nature would typically take a year or more to organize, but within weeks, plans began falling into place. As the departure date approached, however, there was still no guarantee the meeting would happen.
A few weeks before leaving, Dennis traveled to Saint Meinrad with McCabe and her children. He wanted to meet with Archabbot Kurt Stasiak, who serves as his spiritual director, and ask for a blessing before the trip.
That evening, after returning to Owensboro, McCabe texted him.
“Check your email,” she wrote.
An email from the cardinal’s office informed them that their request had been approved by the papal household and that they would be given an audience with Pope Leo.
“It fell into place that quick,” Dennis said.
The next day became a scramble to book flights and accommodations. Because plans remained uncertain until the final days, Dennis did not publicly announce the trip until the night before he left.
The group arrived in Rome shortly before the June 3 audience. The evening before meeting the pope, Dennis and McCabe’s husband, Pat, walked to the Vatican to collect their audience tickets and visit St. Peter’s Basilica.
“This was my first time going to Italy, to Rome,” Dennis said. “We walked through the wall into the Vatican, and it was just, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re here.’”
The following morning, they returned for the audience.
At first, Vatican officials directed the group toward seats near the front. Then another official arrived and informed Dennis and McCabe that they would be seated even closer.
“We were literally not even 50 feet behind the pope’s chair,” Dennis said.
A group of roughly 50 people sat in the area behind the pope while thousands more filled St. Peter’s Square. Dennis listened as Pope Leo addressed the crowd in multiple languages before offering a blessing in Latin. Afterward, the pope stepped down from the stage area and began greeting those seated nearby.
“He came down to where all of us were sitting, and he went down each row and talked to each person,” Dennis said.
Dennis said he is keeping much of their conversation private because of its spiritual significance, but he shared a few details.
“I greeted him on behalf of our bishop and of our diocese and my parish,” Dennis said.
He also introduced himself in a memorable way.
“I let him know, ‘You know, we blind priests do exist,’” Dennis said. “And he kind of chuckled. He said, ‘Yeah, and I know of a few of you.’”
Dennis said his biggest takeaway from the encounter had little to do with proximity to the pope.
“My main takeaway was he listened,” Dennis said. “Because I had some things to say to him and ask him about, and he listened. He was present to me.”
For Dennis, that personal attention stood out.
“To be able to have a moment like that with a head of state and the leader of the Church, that was amazing,” he said. “I went as just a nobody, as a simple parish priest who does not have a huge YouTube following, who is not a world diplomat. I just went as a little parish priest to talk to my superior and was able to have that moment.”
Before leaving, McCabe presented Pope Leo with a small White Sox-themed gift, a nod to the Chicago-born pope’s well-known baseball allegiance.
The audience became the highlight of the trip, but it was not the only memorable experience.
The following day, Dennis went to St. Peter’s Basilica hoping to celebrate a private Mass at one of the church’s side altars. Instead, he learned the Vatican was preparing for its Corpus Christi celebration.
Officials invited him to join the Mass and Eucharistic procession. One of his altar servers from St. Mary Magdalene, Will McCabe, was allowed to accompany him. As the procession moved through St. Peter’s Square, Dennis found himself reflecting on the moment.
“I leaned over to Will, and I said, ‘Will, we are walking with Jesus through St. Peter’s Square,’” Dennis said. “And he goes, ‘You’re right, Father, we are.’”
Later that evening, after the basilica had nearly emptied, Dennis experienced the space in a way familiar to him. Because he cannot see much of the artwork, architecture, or ornamentation inside historic churches, he often relies on sound to understand a place.
“One of the things I do, since I can’t see the ornamentation and all of that, I experience the space by singing in it,” he said.
Before leaving St. Peter’s, he sang a hymn written by a blind monk.
“I could feel that space,” Dennis said. “It was amazing.”
The trip also included visits to Mount Vesuvius, Pompeii, and the Amalfi Coast. Dennis said hiking Vesuvius was one of his goals before arriving in Italy. Standing on the rim of the volcano’s crater, he could not see the steam vents but knew exactly where he was.
“When we got to the rim of the crater, and the wind blew just right, yeah, it’s alive,” Dennis said. “I smelled sulfur.”
At Pompeii, a guide with an archaeology background provided Dennis with a rare opportunity to touch artifacts that visitors typically cannot handle, including statues and casts created from the remains of people killed during the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79.
“To walk through a Roman town that is from the time of Christ, to walk through the ruts that were made by Roman chariots that are preserved, I mean, that was amazing,” Dennis said.
Now back home, Dennis said one of the most meaningful parts of the trip was carrying the prayers of others with him.
Before leaving, he invited people to submit prayer requests through social media. When he celebrated Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica, he offered those intentions there.
“I carried those people with me for that Mass,” he said.
Looking back, Dennis said the trip reinforced one of the core ideas of Catholicism.
“The universality of the Catholic Church,” he said. “The Church is the same wherever you go, and that’s what the Catholic Church is supposed to be. You should be able to go to any Catholic church and be at home.”
He also appreciated the opportunity to tell the new pope that Catholics in western Kentucky are praying for him.
“He’s got a lot on his shoulders,” Dennis said. “To be able to talk to him and let him know that he is loved and supported, that’s a huge deal.”
