Wednesday, September 23, 2015
• Pope's US arrival coincides with Yom Kippur
By LINDA M. LINONIS
For some Mahoning Valley residents, this may be their only chance to be in the same air space with Pope Francis.
The pontiff, who landed Tuesday in Washington, D.C., his first trip to the United States, also will visit New York and Philadelphia and deliver addresses to a joint session of Congress and the United Nations General Assembly.
The chance of getting close to the popular pope is minimal. In Philadelphia, the American public will get to see the first Jesuit pope during the Festival of Families on Saturday and Mass on Sunday in conjunction with the World Meeting of Families.
Pope Francis is the fourth pontiff to visit the United States. On Oct. 4, 1965, in New York City, President Lyndon B. Johnson met with Pope Paul VI, the first reigning pope to visit. President Jimmy Carter received Pope John Paul II at the White House on Oct. 6, 1979, while Pope Benedict XV visited President George W. Bush at the White House in April 2008.
Valley residents will be among the expected 2 million people in Philadelphia, where the pope will culminate his visit in North America. On Saturday, he will attend a Festival of Families celebration on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and Sunday Mass near Philadelphia Museum of Art.
David Schmidt, director of the Office of Pro-Life, Marriage and Family Life in the Diocese of Youngstown, is attending the World Meeting of Families Congress that began Tuesday and concludes Friday in Philadelphia, drawing some 15,000 participants from 150 countries. St. John Paul II created the World Meeting of Families in 1994 in Rome to explore the role family plays in society.
“The speakers at the World Meeting of Families Congress were just too good to pass up,” Schmidt said. The papal visit to the family event is a big bonus. He is with a small group from the diocese.
Though Schmidt said he anticipates an exciting time with the pope’s presence at the families celebration and Mass, he doesn’t hold out much hope of seeing the pope up close.
In 1979, he saw Pope John Paul II in Chicago. “I was so far away,” he said of the experience. With Pope Francis, one never knows if and when he might stop along the parade route. “Maybe I’ll be in the right place,” Schmidt said.
Today, Bishop George V. Murry of the diocese, along with other U.S. bishops, is attending a meeting with the pope in Washington, where bishops also will pray with the pope at St. Matthew Cathedral.
Bishop Murry was appointed by the pope as one of the U.S. bishops to attend the Synod on the Family scheduled Oct. 4-24 at the Vatican in Rome. “This is an extreme honor for Bishop Murry and the diocese,” Schmidt said.
Priscilla Carlucci of Christ Our Savior Parish in Struthers coordinated a bus trip set Friday through Monday. They will attend the Festival of Families, Papal Mass and see the musical, “Joseph,” at the Millennium Theater near Lancaster, Pa.
Though Carlucci said she has been in Pope Francis’ presence three times before, she’s still excited about this trip. On a trip to Europe in 2013 with St. Nicholas Church in the parish, she said the group saw Pope Francis in Rome and twice in Assisi. “We happened to be there on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi and were six feet from the pope when he stopped to bless a baby,” she recalled. Again in Assisi, the group saw the pope as he visited orphans. “We were within a few feet,” Carlucci said.
She doesn’t expect to get that close in Philadelphia but “one never knows what the pope will do,” she said. Pope Francis often stops to bless the sick and disabled; one person in the Struthers group uses a wheelchair.
Though the trip took months of planning and organizing, Carlucci said she was glad to do it. “I know what it takes to plan a trip,” she said, having organized many bus trips for the parish.
A bus of about 50 people also is going from Blessed Sacrament Church in Warren. The Friday to Monday trip involves Catholics but also members of other churches from different denominations. Another group from Our Lady of Mount Carmel Basilica in Youngstown also plans a trip.