Hundreds of people filled the pews inside Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral on a rainy Wednesday morning for a memorial Mass to Pope Francis, the 88-year-old pontiff remembered for a groundbreaking and unpretentious papacy.
Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, presided over the service. Elevated to the College of Cardinals in 2016, Cupich is scheduled to head to Rome this week for Francis’ funeral. Eventually, he and his fellow cardinals will convene to select Francis’ successor.
“It was difficult to get through the ceremony today,” Cupich told reporters after the service. “But now we move ahead, and that’s the way (Francis) would want us to be. He always looked on what’s next, because, as he said, Jesus is always doing something new.”
Linda Fowlkes arrived at the historic cathedral an hour before the service’s 10 a.m. start time. Despite being raised Baptist, the 63-year-old Southwest Side resident said she felt compelled to pay her respects to the pope, who died Monday at his residence, one day after he delivered an Easter Sunday blessing to thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square and nearly a month after he was discharged from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, where he spent 38 days battling a near-fatal case of pneumonia in both lungs.
“He was the people’s pope,” Fowlkes said. “He reached out to the world.”
Seated several rows back, Bucktown resident Melissa Velarde, 45, said she admired Francis’ leadership and felt a special connection to the Argentinian-born pope because she is originally from Peru.
“I loved that he could make mistakes,” she said, “that he knew he was like any of us and that he could become better everyday.”
Across the center aisle, 29-year-old Kevin Copp, an assistant principal of a Catholic school on the far southwest side, said he wanted to feel connected with the broader Catholic community to celebrate the pope’s life and legacy.
“He was someone who lived what he taught,” Copp said. “He didn’t just say we’re going to reach people in the margins, he did that. He tried to build a church that was inclusive of everyone.”
A framed photograph of Francis rested on a purple-satin-covered stand to the right of the altar, surrounded by Easter lilies and other flowers. At one side of the sanctuary sat a collection of invited interfaith leaders.
The Rev. Patti Nakai, a retired minister from the Buddhist Temple of Chicago, said she met Pope Francis twice, once in 2015 and again in 2018. Pulling up photos on her phone, Nakai described a “pope glow” from that first meeting.
“When we met him, we just felt this glowing sense that he was such a direct, down-to-earth person,” she remembered. “He just left us with this really great feeling.”
Rev. Brian Wise with the Metropolitan Chicago Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, praised the long history of interfaith collaboration in Chicago.
“When there’s a loss in the community, love shows up,” Wise said. “It’s a beautiful act of love seeing all these different faith leaders come and be present.”
After the service, Cupich stood near the front entrance, shaking hands and taking photos with the line of people waiting to greet him. Two of them, Alexander Huber and Florian Frohnhofer — both priests from southeast Germany — said they were first-time visitors to Chicago who saw the memorial Mass advertised outside Holy Name and decided to attend.
The German priests said they wished Cupich well with the upcoming conclave.
“We need a pope to save the unity of the church,” Huber said.
