Pope Leo XIV converted me, but not in the way you think.
I am a cranky Yankee who thinks some things are child’s play and don’t deserve my attention.
Enter Pope Leo, the first American to become Pope, and a youthful age 70. He could be my brother age-wise.
An interviewer asked him “Is it true you play Wordle every morning? Did you play it this morning?”
“Yes and Yes. Got it in three,” answered His Holiness.
Pope Leo XIV’s first full-length US book, ‘Peace Be with You,’ to be released in February
Until I heard that I had considered Wordle a kind of kindergarten crossword puzzle. Baby stuff. No clues, no crosswords, no thinking.
But the minute I heard the actual Pope say he “got it in three” my competitive juices began to flow.
I’ve played Wordle every day since and I actually think of Pope Leo in the Vatican with his touch screen poking away at Wordle hoping for a green letter to pop up as a sign of solid progress.
If the Pope’s strategy is to build a community among non-Catholics it has worked in my case.
This morning I woke up actually dreaming of 5 letter words I could use as starters for Wordle. I feel I am a member of a million person for digital congregation, all living “One Wordle at a time” as the 12-Step programs say.
In 1960, my father in Hamden, Connecticut used to save the New York Times Magazine for our Great Aunt Bertha who was in her 70s and wanted to “do” the crossword puzzle in that magazine.
She couldn’t afford the big fat multi-section New York Times which cost a whopping 75 cents at the time. (A new car cost $1,200 in 1960).
She lived on a 25 acre farm in Killingworth Connecticut with our Great-Uncle Walter, who was in his 80’s.
Her only entertainment was a tiny radio, a loom for hooking rugs from rags she saved, and the crossword puzzles in the NYT magazine. She couldn’t afford a TV.
But they had dogs. Uncle Walter and Aunt Bertha gave those dogs a good life. Twenty-five acres to roam.
They didn’t have children themselves.
It was poetic and sad that an old man had to put his old dog out of its misery.
It was only a few years till he went too at 90
I was a teenager in 1960 and thought crossword puzzles must be for old ladies since Aunt Bertha played them.
That was until Pope Leo inadvertently sanctified them in 2026.
I’ve been playing Wordle now for weeks. The closest I’ve come to Pope Leo’s, “got it in three” is my own much worse. For non-Wordle players reading this, you only get six tries, then you are out.
Only twice have I been so stumped I had to give up at four. Then I just retype a previous word as a sacrifice fifth-try, just to find out the actual winning word, which is only revealed after you fail five tries.
Does this sound like a trivial use of the human intellect? I thought so, especially since I spent 17 years in college and earned four college degrees from four different schools.
That was until I imagined Pope Leo in his white cassock and white skull cap sitting on the Throne of Saint Peter in Vatican City tapping away at Wordle on his digital tablet.
If it takes a Pope three tries to get it right, we underlings should be encouraged that is not a trivial pursuit but a papal relaxation we are participating in.
I can hear the shrugging words of the late beloved Pope Francis echoing from heaven: “Who am I to judge?.”
After all maybe “In the beginning was the Wordle.”
Paul Keane is a Connecticut native, a graduate of Yale School of Divinity and a retired Vermont teacher.