Pope Francis remembered by Miami Valley Catholics for humility, compassion

DAYTON — Catholics around the Miami Valley are mourning the death of Pope Francis.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Black bunting covers the doors of Our Lady of Immaculate Conception in Dayton.

It’s one of the five Catholic churches Father Satish Joseph oversees as pastor.

“It’s a moment of intense grief, personally, for me,” Joseph said. “He became Pope at a juncture when I was beginning to get discouraged. But his papacy gave my priesthood a new energy, a new direction, a new vision.”

TRENDING STORIES:

He spoke on Francis’ legacy.

“I don’t think Pope Francis’ legacy can be talked about fairly without paying attention to the role that he played in making people in the peripheries feel center stage,” he said.

Trina Crespo was shocked to learn of Francis’ passing.

She made a pilgrimage to Rome with other University of Dayton students in 2019 and got tickets to a papal audience with Francis.

“So we got to see him and he came through and everything and it was really cool to get to be in his presence,” she said.

Crespo said that while she is surprised, she is glad Francis is no longer suffering.

“The Pope has transitioned, we believe as Catholics, in between this earthly life and an eternal life,” Dr. Neomi De Anda, the Executive Director of the International Marian Research Institute and an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Dayton, said.

De Anda said Francis will be remembered for lifting up the voices of the marginalized and his humility, something she said he displayed in his first speech after he was elected pope in 2013.

“At the end, he really just said, ‘I will pray for you, and I ask you to pray for me.’ And I thought, what a different change that is for somebody who has such a powerful position,” she said.

While so many are mourning Francis’ death, at the same time, De Anda said it is beautiful that he died during the Easter season and in a Jubilee Year for the Church.

One that Francis himself declared as a year of hope.