Catholics across Niagara County are remembering Pope Francis after his passing Monday. The pope had blessed thousands of people at the Vatican for Easter Sunday, receiving cheers and applause.
“It’s beyond words,” said Marion Hannigan, a parishioner at St. John the Baptist Church in Lockport. “I cried all morning. He was a man of service, he was a man of caring. He taught us simplicity. He was a man of total love.”
Hannigan said St. John the Baptist Church was standing room only for Easter service. She said it was significant that the pope passed on Easter week, describing his Easter blessing as a final miracle.
“He gave a last farewell yesterday,” she said. “Isn’t that amazing? Yesterday was all about renewal. He was teaching us that.”
“I find that it’s very meaningful that he passed away on Holy Monday,” said Teresa Kearns, Irish historian for the New York State Ladies Auxiliary of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. “I think that the Lord has a special place for him in heaven.”
“It’s never easy losing the pope, especially someone as impactful as him,” said Steve Long, recording secretary for the Ancient Order of Hibernians, William J. Ryan Div., Lockport. “We were always thinking of him through his illness.”
Pope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was the eldest of five children of Mario José Bergoglio and Regina María Sívori, both of Italian heritage. He was the first Latin American and first Jesuit to become pope, having risen to cardinal after serving as the archbishop of Buenos Aires.
“There was just something compelling about him and his great love for people — the images of him stopping the pope mobile to reach out to someone with a disability, or a child who was sick,” said Rev. James J. Maher, president of Niagara University. “Western New Yorkers are such good people that I think it really touched their hearts. He had a great way of showing the faith of the papacy.”
Long said Pope Francis set himself apart by focusing on people who were disenfranchised.
“He seemed to take extra care in giving those people attention,” Long said.
Maher agreed.
“He had a great love for people who live in poverty, the elderly, the migrant, and the refugee,” he said. “I think in a special way, he had a love of people struggling with addiction, going back to his time in Buenos Aires. All of us in our lives know people in those categories of life. There was a great resonance for people to see his love for all people.”
Maher remembered a story that was very revealing of Pope Francis’s character.
“On one of his birthday celebrations, he had a breakfast with two homeless men at the Vatican, and one of them brought his dog.”
Pope Francis set himself apart from the beginning by choosing not to live in the Vatican palace, Maher said. Instead, the pope lived in a guesthouse within the Vatican.
“He spoke about the importance of simplicity in life,” Maher said. “People looked at that right away and said ‘Wow, what a difference!’ It gave him a lot of credibility. He not only talked the talk, but walked the walk.”
“He lived like an ordinary person,” Hannigan said. “He said it himself — this is a church of the poor. He was with everyone on the fringe. We turn away from poverty. This is a country where everybody is supposed to succeed, to become a millionaire. There’s a lot of people that that doesn’t happen to. Just one mistake, just one illness, is all it takes.”
“I think about him having to hear about all the horrible things in the world,” Hannigan said. “I wouldn’t want that responsibility myself. If you’re a person of faith, which I am, you call upon the Lord to receive that strength. I’m sure he did that every day.”
“One of the things he would always tell people is ‘Please pray for me,’” Maher said. “He lived by the power of prayer and I think that’s what we all strive to do.”