CALIFORNIA
Orange County Register
By TOMOYA SHIMURA / ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA – Samantha Stribling instructed her students to put away their cell phones and bring all their backpacks in front of her desk.
Then she told them to lock the classroom door so they were shut out from the rest of the world.
Stribling, a religion teacher at Santa Margarita Catholic High School, wanted her students to experience what cardinals go through when they lock themselves behind the walls of the Vatican to select a new pope.
As the Vatican announced Friday the conclave – the voting process of selecting a new pope – will begin Tuesday, the local Catholic high school has been organizing mock conclaves in classrooms to promote interest and understanding of the historic event.
Twenty-six sophomores taking Stribling’s class hung photos of real-life cardinals around their necks and locked themselves away for an hour Wednesday to get a sense of what it’s like to be part of the conclave.
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