Utahns recall meeting Pope Francis

Friday, May. 02, 2025

SALT LAKE CITY — As Pope Francis was laid to rest at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome following his death after 12 years as the Vicar of Christ, several members of the Diocese of Salt Lake City who had the opportunity to meet the pope in person shared thoughts on how he impacted their lives.

“I have had the honor of meeting Pope Francis in Rome when he was still Cardinal Bergoglio, about 15 years ago,” recalled Dr. Gabrielle Terrone, the organist and assistant director of music at the Cathedral of the Madeleine.

Before coming to Utah, Terrone served as organist and choirmaster in several churches in Rome, including the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where he served as the titular organist.

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was a good friend of one of Terrone’s priest friends, he said. 

“Often, when Cardinal Bergoglio was in Rome, my friend would invite him to celebrate the Mass in his parish and to administer the Sacrament of Confirmation to the children of the parish,” Terrone said. “I remember vividly some of his homilies and his reverence celebrating the Mass, as well as the always accessible and kind words he had for the children and for all of us gathered in the church.”

While it is difficult to say how Pope’s Francis pontificate has impacted his life, Terrone noted that the Holy Father in many ways showed great continuity of thought and action with his predecessors. 

“We cannot forget Bergoglio’s insistence about the Lord’s predilection for the poor and the destitute, a predilection which is not a prerogative of a specific pontiff or pontificate, but indeed a characteristic of the universal Church,” Terrone said.

He added that every person “should be also grateful to Pope Francis for having so often and intensely reminded us about the Sacrament of Confession, the sacrament where the love, patience and the mercy of the Lord are most evident to all – the Lord’s mercy for all being one aspect that the pope has taken particularly at heart in his magisterium.”

Pope Francis often asked people to pray for him, so “let’s not stop now, and let’s hope that he may now offer, through the mercy of Our Lord, much more efficacious prayers for us,” Terrone said. 

In 2013, Father Christopher Gray, now pastor of Saint Mary of the Assumption Parish in Park City, was a seminarian at the Pontifical North American College and was selected to be the cantor deacon for Pope Francis’ first celebration of Easter after his election. 

“It was a deeply moving experience, as I proclaimed to him the kerygma which most directly applied to him as the successor of Peter: ‘The Lord has risen from the tomb, who for us hung upon the Cross; The Lord is truly risen, and has appeared to Simon,’” (available at https://sistina.ceegee.org/stream/EasterMorningTestus.mp4) Fr. Gray said. “This moment became even more meaningful at the death of Pope Francis, as passing away on an Easter Monday he was in the embrace of the same Christ who appeared to Peter, his predecessor, on the day of the Resurrection (Lk 24:34). The pope is the successor to the apostles in many ways, but in no way more powerfully than as witness to the truth of the resurrection of Jesus, which is the hope of all Christians that binds them into one body, one Easter people.”

In 2023, after celebrating the Diocesan Eucharistic Rally at the Mountain America Expo Center in Sandy, Fr. Gray was able to visit with the Holy Father and give him the greetings of the people of Utah, he said. 

“Holding his hand, seeing his loving face, will always be a profoundly gratifying memory for me,” Fr. Gray said. “Pope Francis was the pope of the first 12 years of my priesthood and I am grateful to his example of preferring the poor and leading the Church in charity.” 

For Jennifer Payne, chaperoning students of The Madeleine Choir School during their 2023 performance tour in Italy, where they saw Pope Francis, was one of the most memorable moments of her life, she said.

The students helped provide the music ministry at the Vatican during the Epiphany Mass, and “Pope Francis came right down the aisle where I was sitting” as the students were preparing to sing, Payne recalled. Seeing him up close – “his gentle smile, his kind eyes, waving and watching his face light up when seeing the children, was deeply moving and very emotional for me. … His warmth, and quiet strength was felt and embraced by everyone in that crowded cathedral.”

Pope Francis has profoundly impacted her life, Payne said. “More so right now as I mourn the loss of this kind man, especially through his focus on immigrants and those people on the fringes of society, people who are often overlooked or dismissed by the rest of the world.”

The Holy Father’s compassion, kindness and humility “guide me both personally and professionally as examples of being welcoming, non-judgmental, open-minded and compassionate with those who are the most vulnerable,” she said. “He lived what he spoke;  lived a life of mercy, dignity and unconditional love. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?”

Payne said that one of her neighbors, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, texted her the morning that Pope Francis passed away with the message “I’m so sorry that the Pope passed away! I really like his teachings. The world was a better place with him in it.” 

Pope Francis “was one of the rare leaders who truly put people before politics,” Payne said. “His life is an example and challenges me to be more open, more generous and more mindful of others. I will be forever grateful that I had but a small moment in his presence.”

Gregory Glenn, the choir school’s pastoral administrator who also serves as the cathedral’s director of liturgy, has studied Pope’s Francis four encyclicals, seven apostolic exhortations and numerous apostolic letters, and “I must say that Pope Francis’s invitation to make our churches more like field hospitals for the wounded and suffering has profoundly impacted my ministry,” he said.

Working with Father Martin Diaz, the cathedral rector, Glenn has used the Holy Father’s teachings so that “we have managed many situations in recent years as a ‘field hospital’ for people in difficult and complicated circumstances who simply need the care and love of the Church,” he said.

In his work at both the cathedral and the school, Pope Francis’ teachings and example helped Glenn to “focus more on those struggling on the margins, with a greater sense of welcome to all,” he said. “This is a gift from the pastoral direction given by our Holy Father Francis.”

Junuee Castro, who served as director of the diocesan Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry from 2016 to 2020, met Pope Francis  in 2019 as part of a delegation from the United States who traveled to Rome to share the results and recommendations of the V National Encuentro. This was the first time a diocesan lay representative from Utah had the opportunity to be in a delegation representing the Encuentro and meet directly with the pope.

“Pope Francis impacted my ministry and my life in a very unique way,” said Castro, who now is the coordinator of Youth & Young Adult Ministry in the Diocese of Phoenix.

“His invitation to go out to the peripheries and meet the marginalized, the incarcerated, the migrants and the sick was an echo of Jesus in the Gospel,” Castro recalled.

For her, the most beautiful charism that Pope Francis had was “his promotion of God’s mercy, the joy of the Gospel and that all the people are always welcome. This motivates me to always renew my commitment to serve the People of God,” she said. “His legacy for me is his joy for life, his love for the Church and the hope to keep on building a Church that goes out, that listens, that talks and reflects with a spirit. Thank you, Pope Francis, for transforming the vision of what it is to be Church for our generations and the ones to come.”