Within hours of the announcement of Pope Francis’ death on Monday, churches all over the world paid tribute to the 88-year-old head of the Catholic Church, including the City of Peekskill’s Church of The Assumption.
There, dozens of residents and parishioners bowed their heads in reverence and knelt in silent prayer in front of framed pictures of the late pope. Members of the congregation also prayed aloud in English and Spanish.
The Vatican announced on Monday, April 21, that Pope Francis passed away one day after Easter Sunday in his home at 7:35 a.m. local time (1:35 a.m. in Peekskill) following a cerebral stroke and irreversible cardiocirculatory collapse.
His final public appearance was at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City on Easter Sunday, where he reiterated a call for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages. Francis, who began his papacy in 2013, is being remembered throughout the community for being a voice of peace, his humility, promoting interfaith dialogues, and advocating for global issues.
Sandra Pagan, a member of the Legion of Mary and Assumption Church’s congregation since 2010, helped to lead a rosary prayer at the church on Monday to uplift everybody’s spirits and honor Pope Francis’ passing.
She recalled getting to see the pope along with hundreds of others in Central Park when he visited New York in 2015. Pagan described him as someone with special leadership, a generous spirit, and sense of humility.
“Pope Francis was such a special spiritual leader to the Catholic Church worldwide,” Pagan said. “He really professed inclusion of all kinds for the poor and for marginalized communities, including immigrants and refugees, as well as the LGBTQ. He did a wonderful job in highlighting the need for working together to address wars and conflicts.”
Pope Francis was described as a “true gift from God to the church” by Sister Laura Morgan, provincial superior of the Franciscan Sisters of Peekskill.
Morgan, a volunteer providing ministry in the New York prison system, said she related to Francis who washed the feet of people in prison on Holy Thursday, adding that the church was for everybody, whether rich or poor.
“He was the pope for everybody,” Morgan said. “I was so impressed on Sunday evening that he was out in the popemobile, blessing the babies. I’m sure it was kind of like the last thing that he felt he had to do.”
Morgan too had an opportunity to see the pope when he was doing a service for religious sisters in Rome in 2016. She said his vibes and words were like being in the presence of Jesus.
She was touched by a moment in 2018 when Francis comforted a little boy who asked the pope if his recently passed-away atheist father was in heaven. Francis told the boy his father was a good man and that God does not abandon children when they are good.
“One of the things that impressed me early on in his papacy is when he [encouraged] placing showers and a McDonald’s by the Vatican so the homeless would have a place to get clean and something to eat,” Morgan said. “And that sold me on him right away. He didn’t like the fanfare. He was satisfied being one of us. He wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. And that’s what Jesus did too.”
As a Puerto Rican, owner of Persephone’s Pearl and historian John Paul Carto took pride in Francis being the first Latin American pope.
Carto, a retired history teacher, said he goes to church and practices alternative religions and different spiritual practices as well.
“Just seeing throughout history the different popes that there have been, he seems to be somebody who was kind, who was really for the people,” Carto said. “He seemed pretty progressive to me. That showed where his heart was at. [The papacy’s] a position of power and the person that has it can do a lot of different things. And to me, he chose to do good with that power.”
Robert Lindenberg, a police chaplain for the Peekskill Police Department and founder of Peak Community Church, said he admired Francis’ humility and how he broke cultural barriers and divides.
“He found a middle line somehow, someway, without really compromising a lot of the Scriptures and the things we adhere to,” Lindenberg said, “and at the same time, being able to be that hand extended to the marginalized, the ones that are furthest from God. And to me, he had a very evangelical heart.”
Wilfredo Morel, Sun River Health’s Vice President of Immigrant Health and a member of Park Street AME Zion Church, said Francis lived by humility and it was his hope that the world could capitalize on the way Francis championed inclusion, put aside prejudice, and embraced everyone.
“Right now the entire world, not just the United States, is in a state of uncertainty,” Morel said. “As a nation, as humans in this country, we all need to, in some way, connect that energy to pray for something, if not comparable to what this man’s legacy was, to get something close to that. Otherwise we’re gonna get lost into the unnecessary chaos of the universe.”
Rev. James Perry of Mount Olivet Baptist Church said he remembers Francis as a great example of multidimensional leadership, respecting his predecessor when for the first time two popes operated at the same time.
“I like the fact that he evolved in a lot of his teachings and his thoughts,” Perry said. “He said he didn’t always get it right. He wasn’t perfect but he was willing to listen and he was willing to make a change. He was willing to include.”
Perry commented on the significance of Francis dying one day after Easter Sunday.
“Ironically, Resurrection Sunday is about hope and the continued new beginning,” Perry said. “And so I think befittingly on this time, he is showing us once again, there’s a new beginning. He said at one point, ‘We are not living an era of change but a change of era.’ And so transition periods can be great. Let’s just stay together and make sure we get to them well.”
Francis’ funeral mass will be held on Saturday, April 26, in St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City, Rome, Italy.
