Reactions are pouring in from across the commonwealth on news of Pope Francis’ death early Monday morning. The pope passed away at the age of 88.
Archbishop of Boston Richard Henning told GBH News Monday that the pope brought a “radical humility, personal humility” to the role.
Speaking after mass at St. Patrick Church in Natick, Henning said it’s difficult to know the extent of the pope’s legacy so soon after his passing, but that his compassion for the poor was profound.
“He has kind of prophetically called us over and over again to pay attention to those at the margins, those who are forgotten,” he said.
The pope repeatedly brought the attention of Catholics, and the attention of the world, to those who have the least, Henning said.
“This global economy that has brought such great wealth has also brought great suffering. There’s a lot of people that get left behind and he’s constantly reminding us of that,” Henning said. “It is the tradition of Catholic social teaching to welcome the stranger, to help the stranger, to respond to people in need with generosity, to do everything we can to help them. That isn’t the mood in the world at this moment, and so he has been something of a lonely voice calling for that across the globe.”
At the St. Francis Chapel tucked inside the Prudential Center, where Boston Marathon spectators gathered on Monday, Father Jeremy Paulin recalled meeting Pope Francis in 2015.
“I shared this morning in the mass his last homily — which was Easter Sunday, yesterday — some words from his last homily [in] which he spoke about hope,” Paulin said.
Michael C. McCarthy, a priest and dean of the Boston College Clough School of Theology and Ministry, told GBH News Monday he felt sadness and gratitude.
“He stressed what I would call the centrality of discipleship: that Christians are called to go forth into the world, to leave their comfort zones, to what he often called ‘the peripheries of the world’ that need light,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy said he felt the pope’s response to the global sexual abuse crisis was “imperfect,” and that it likely took him some time to come to terms with the gravity and universal scope of the crisis. “I do think this is something the church continues to wrestle with, as does, indeed, larger society.”
Local officials honored the pope and shared their grief.
“We’ve lost a very powerful voice for those who are the poorest, those who are in prison, [and] the immigrant community — but we’ve lost a powerful voice on climate change, as well,” U.S. Sen. Ed Markey told GBH’s Morning Edition Monday.
Markey met with the pope in 2014.
“He really did believe that the richest nations in the world had a moral responsibility to reduce greenhouse gasses because they were going to actually pose the greatest harm to the most vulnerable countries, to the most poor people on the planet,” Markey said.
Gov. Maura Healey issued at statement Monday to “join with [her] fellow Catholics and people around the world in mourning the passing of Pope Francis.”
“His life was a commitment to our sacred responsibility to care for others, especially the most vulnerable among us,” the governor wrote. “In no other realm was that more evident than his dedication to climate, human rights, immigrant communities and the working poor.”
