Faithful remember Pope Francis as 'pilgrim of hope'

Pope Francis’ message to listen more, preach less and show mercy to all resonated, even among those who lacked faith.

Francis, who died Monday at 88, was remembered by Western Pennsylvanians as a man who led by his actions.

The South American Jesuit had a 12-year papacy marked by humility, prayer and a focus on meeting people where they were in life and listening to them.

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Southwestern Pennsylvania’s Roman Catholic leaders, Greensburg Bishop Larry Kulick and Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik, told TribLive that Francis’ death is like losing a family member — it’s the reason some of the faithful call the pope the holy father — and his loss will be felt to the core of the church.

Saturday’s funeral Mass was a simplified rite stripped of the imperial overtones of previous papal funerals and more like the ones afforded any member of the church. The intent of the change is to show how everyone is equal in death, Kulick said.

The funeral is the beginning of nine days of formal mourning before the process to choose the next pope begins.

Francis’ life and papacy embodied empathy, mercy, humility and Christian love, the bishops said.

The pope likened the church to a field hospital and taught that, in encountering someone, the first aims should be to listen and help as opposed to judge and teach.

“He had a natural gift of making people feel they were important,” Zubik said. “To really step inside the shoes of another person.”

. @BishopZubik talks about Pope Francis’ abundant empathy for people. pic.twitter.com/NUH5y00P89

— Tom Davidson (@TribDavidson) April 21, 2025

“Listening allows you to see where people are, what their perspectives are, how do you respond to them,” Kulick said.

“You hear with your brain, you listen with your heart” is how Zubik described it to students when he was a young priest, he said.

It’s tougher than the time-worn model of pray, pay and obey to gain favor in a church, Kulick said.

‘We’re going to miss him’

All Catholics, not just the clergy, should live out their faith this way, Francis taught.

The pope’s teachings hit home with Josie Cribbs.

A 17-year-old from Shelocta, Indiana County, she’s still coming to terms with the fact that the only pope she remembers is dead.

“It will take a little time to fully absorb and process the fact that he is no longer living,” Cribbs said.

She participated in a pilgrimage to Italy this year in a group led by Kulick that included a stop in Assisi, birthplace of St. Francis, the pope’s namesake, to pay homage to Carlo Acutis, who is set to become the first millennial saint. The Italian boy died of leukemia in 2006 at the age of 15.

Acutis’ canonization, initially set for this week, was postponed until a new pope is chosen. Acutis, known for using technology to spread the Gospel, is wearing jeans and Nikes at the shrine, Josie said.

“If he can become a saint, then I can, too,” she said.

It’s among the things that make her excited to be a young Catholic, she said.

Jennifer MacNeil, the president of St. Joseph School in Harrison, also made the trip to Italy as part of the group led by Kulick.

She and her mother encountered the papal motorcade on March 23 as Francis was released from the hospital

“Everyone was hollering and yelling ‘Papa Francesco,’ ” MacNeil said.

She uses Francis’ wisdom regularly as the leader of a Catholic school, she said.

He connected to youth and used what she called good messaging in his teachings.

“We’re going to miss him,” she said.

Catholic church evolves slowly

As pope, Francis expanded the role of women and lay people in the church’s governance, something longtime nuns Sister Mary Parks, Society of St. Joseph in Baden (Beaver County), Sister Sheila Carney, special assistant to the president on mercy and heritage at Carlow University in Oakland, and Mother Superior Mary Anne Noll of St. Emma Monastery in Hempfield appreciated.

Change comes slowly in a church that dates back two millennia, Parks said.

She saw Francis’ papacy as the beginning of what she called “the full discipleship of women” — meaning women serving at the same level of men.

“I have no doubt we’ll get to that,” Parks said.

Francis worked within the framework of the church to further that process, she said.

“The idea here is how can we be a community of people and work our way through these things together, see what the good is, where is God with us?” Parks said.

Francis’ focus on the importance of listening and coming together as a community to arrive at decisions is “a woman’s way,” Carney said.

As a member of the Sisters of Mercy, she took Francis’ message of merciful love to heart. He has a deep yearning to encounter people, learn about them and from them, and help them, she said.

“Those things are very important to me,” Carney said.

He’ll be remembered as someone who brought people together and gave them a voice no matter their station in life, she said.

Women already play key roles in the church even if they aren’t accepted to be ordained as priests, Noll said.

“There’s a lot of responsible positions besides being a priest,” said Noll, 81.

She’s leader of five nuns at St. Emma who remain active in the community.

She enjoys helping people along what she calls the roller coaster of life and said Francis was a living example of the Catholic faith.

“He lived a life of compassion. If you wanted to see the compassionate face of Christ, that’s where it was,” Noll said. “He was this pilgrim of hope.”

More than a sound bite

Francis was distilled into sound bites by the secular world, said the Rev. Daniel Carr, pastor of St. Regis in Trafford.

“If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” Francis said to reporters in July 2013 during a flight home from his first foreign trip.

The comment made news across the world, but it did not mark a change in Catholic teaching. Instead, it showed Francis’ approach of listening to people first.

“The church needs to help form relationships instead of teaching doctrine,” said Vincent Reilly of Unity.

He is managing director of faith, family and discipleship for the Greensburg Catholic Diocese and has studied Francis and his teachings as part of his job.

Francis’ tenure began amid the sex abuse scandals that have left lasting wounds on the church. People are also less religious than they had been and the coronavirus pandemic also changed the way people worship, Reilly said.

“He worked not to lament those issues but gave people a reason to believe,” Reilly said.

He also addressed the responsibility people have to be good stewards of the environment in the face of climate change in a formal letter released in 2015.

The pope’s teaching on this also revolved around asking people to come together, said Dan Scheid, associate professor of theology at Duquesne University.

There are no easy answers, Francis taught. People need to care for the Earth and the poor, Scheid said.

One of Francis’ modern predecessors was the globetrotting Pope St. John Paul II, known for his visits to 129 countries in nearly three decades.

While John Paul II brought the church to the world, Francis made people realize the church itself is a global entity, said Carlow University assistant theology professor Stephen Calme.

For Carr, this realization came to him while he was studying in Rome. The fact of the matter is the church in China is not the church in Africa is not the church in the U.S. is not the church in South America, Carr said.

“In itself, it’s an impossible task to unite the church,” Carr said.

But, as leaders of the faith, that’s what popes do, and it shows the role of the divine that’s also at work, he said.

“There are going to be some people who didn’t like Pope Francis,” Carr said. “My hope is that we all can pray for the repose of his soul.”

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