'Everyone was a child of God': Faithful recall Pope Francis' 2015 US visit

PHILADELPHIA (OSV News) -- Faithful are recalling Pope Francis' 2015 apostolic journey to the U.S. as a moving encounter, with an impact still felt a decade later.

"Immediately in his presence, everyone was a child of God," Joanne Walsh, associate superintendent for early childhood education for the Archdiocese of New York, told OSV News.

Walsh -- who spoke with OSV News hours after Pope Francis died April 21 at 7:35 a.m. Rome time due to a stroke -- was principal of Our Lady Queen of Angels in East Harlem in New York, one of the sites chosen for the papal visit to the nation a decade ago.

The apostolic journey's demanding itinerary, which spanned Sept. 19-28, 2015, included stops in New York, Philadelphia and Washington and kicked off with a three-day visit to Cuba.

During his time in the U.S. capital, Pope Francis met with then-President Barack Obama and addressed a joint session of Congress, urging members to prioritize the common good and human dignity.

In his message, he exhorted both lawmakers and the American people as a whole to reject polarization and anti-immigrant sentiments, while renewing a "spirit of cooperation, which has accomplished so much good throughout the history of the United States."

He also echoed the U.S. Catholic bishops' stance against the death penalty -- a position he would go on to concretize by revising the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018 to clarify the church’s teaching that capital punishment is morally “inadmissible” in the modern world.

While speaking to Congress, Pope Francis highlighted the lives and legacies of "three sons and a daughter of this land" -- President Abraham Lincoln; civil rights leader the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; social justice advocate and Servant of God Dorothy Day; and Cistercian monk and author Father Thomas Merton -- as respectively embracing "four dreams" of liberty, plurality, human rights and "the capacity for dialogue and openness to God."

At the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Francis canonized Franciscan Father Junipero Serra, known as the "Apostle of California" for his evangelization of Indigenous peoples. The canonization -- the first to take place on U.S. soil -- was not without controversy, however, as some criticized the impact of Serra's missionary work on Indigenous persons and communities.

Addressing the U.S. Catholic bishops while in Washington, Pope Francis expressed his "affection and spiritual closeness with the People of God throughout this vast land." He acknowledged the wounds of the clerical abuse crisis and other challenges faced by the church, but exhorted bishops to "dialogue among yourselves, dialogue in your presbyterates, dialogue with lay persons, dialogue with families, dialogue with society," adding, "I cannot ever tire of encouraging you to dialogue fearlessly."

He also implored the bishops to continue to face with courage and compassion the influx of immigrants from Latin American nations, saying, "Do not be afraid to welcome them."

In New York, his visit to Our Lady Queen of Angels School -- which Walsh said was "an opportunity for the people in the community of East Harlem, which is historically an immigrant population" -- radiated a sense of warmth.

"He was the pastor, the father, immediately," she said, pointing to the pope's "sense of humor, his ability to have that twinkle in his eye."

James Sayer, the school's current principal, told OSV News that even a decade later, "this sense of pride … (that) we were the school where the pope visited" remains.

Throughout the pope's recent respiratory illness, which saw him hospitalized for several weeks earlier this year, "we would always pray the prayer of St. Francis for his improved health," said Sayer.

When Pope Francis rallied and was eventually discharged to the Vatican for convalescence, "all the kids just started applauding and clapping," said Sayer. "They were just so personally invested in that."

Speaking to the members of the United Nations General Assembly during his time in New York, Pope Francis stressed the urgency of simultaneously caring for the environment and redressing material and spiritual exclusion of the marginalized, warning that "the contemporary world, so apparently connected, is experiencing a growing and steady social fragmentation."

He joined Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York and other religious leaders at the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum, which marks one of the sites of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, meeting with a group of victims' relatives.

Among them was Virginia Bauer, who lost her husband in the tragedy and became an advocate for the 9/11 families.

Bauer, a trustee and member of the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum, told OSV News that the meeting was "especially poignant" for her as a Catholic.

"It was really special to just meet with him (the pope) and ask for his blessing and his prayers," said Bauer, a member of Holy Cross Parish in Rumson, New Jersey. "He blessed my rosaries and his (her son's) cross. … I just remember thinking, 'What a gentle man.'"

In Philadelphia, Pope Francis presided at a liturgy with that archdiocese's clergy and religious at the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul, and at the concluding Mass for the 2015 World Meeting of Families, which drew an estimated one to 1.5 million to Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway following the previous evening's lively "Festival of Families."

Father Matthew Brody -- then an acolyte about to be ordained as a transitional deacon -- served as book bearer for the cathedral Mass, holding the Roman Missal for the pope, an experience he said was "really powerful."

"I was definitely nervous, but excited," Father Brody, now pastor of St. Richard Parish in Philadelphia, told OSV News. "It isn't that often that you get to be in that close proximity with the pope. … We were just in awe of the fact that we were celebrating Mass in the presence of the successor of Peter."

The pope also met with several persons with disabilities, sexual abuse survivors and inmates.
For Brandan Hargrose, then incarcerated at Philadelphia's Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, encountering the pope was "definitely an experience."

Hargrose -- now a program specialist for the Atlantic City, New Jersey, municipal administration -- told OSV News that he "remembers it like it was yesterday" when Pope Francis visited the prison.

Speaking in Spanish, the pope told the inmates, "I am here as a pastor, but above all as a brother, to share your situation and to make it my own. I have come so that we can pray together and offer our God everything that causes us pain, but also everything that gives us hope, so that we can receive from him the power of the resurrection."

Hargrose and several of his fellow prisoners had fashioned a special chair for the pope to use during his stop at the facility.

"We all worked together as a team," Hargrose, a practicing Christian, recalled.

He added that his moments in the late pope's presence were "a great experience … something I could tell my kids."