Nick Gaynor first ‘hit it off’ with the future pope in 2023. The Villanovans recently reunited in Rome.

The breakfast room at the General Curia isn’t spacious. It contains maybe three tables, if that; often occupied by Augustinian friars, all of whom live in the brick building just outside the Vatican.

You can’t help but connect with those around you, which is perhaps the point. Every day, over coffee and fruit, the Friars sit together and talk, strengthening the community that underlies their faith.

One morning in late September of 2023, Archbishop Robert Prevost encountered a familiar face there. Father Joe Farrell was eating with his brother, Tom, and two friends, Michael and Nick Gaynor, who had traveled from Malvern, Chester County to attend the Ryder Cup in Italy.

Prevost joined them at their table. He quickly learned, to his delight, that the Gaynors had ties to his alma mater, Villanova University.

Michael was the dean of undergraduate admissions. Nick, his son, graduated from the school in 2019 and was an ambassador for the women’s basketball program.

He’d been around the team since he was 5. At first, Michael took his son to games. Then, games turned into practices. By the time he enrolled at Villanova in 2011, he’d transitioned to student manager.

This was not a small commitment. Nick, who was born with cerebral palsy, took only two courses a semester to avoid overextending himself. But he always found time for basketball.

While chipping away at his associate’s and bachelor’s degrees, Gaynor attended every practice and game; crunching film, meeting recruits, and scouting upcoming opponents.

It earned him a nickname.

“Michael called him ‘Nickipedia,’” said head coach Denise Dillon. “Any questions that we might have about a player, he knows. He’s on top of all of it.”

Prevost was drawn to the young man. What started as small talk about a school on the Main Line developed into a conversation about golf, and more. Fifteen minutes later, the man then serving in the role of Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops took a picture with Nick, said a warm goodbye, and went on his way.

That night, while eating pasta carbonara, Michael posited a hypothetical to their group. The archbishop was about to be named cardinal. It was conceivable that he could one day become pope.

What if they had just met a future Supreme Pontiff?

This seemed unlikely. Prevost was a native of Chicago. An American had never been elected to the papacy. But Michael had a feeling; one that proved prescient.

Father Joe invited the Gaynors to stay at the Curia with his brother, which presented more opportunities to run into Prevost. They developed such a rapport that the future pope offered to do Nick a favor.

The Villanova team ambassador had bought a Ryder Cup pin flag, in the hopes of getting it signed by everyone who’d made his trip memorable.

Michael passed it to Father Joe, who passed it to Archbishop Prevost, who then took it straight to the top.

“Bob said, ‘Do you want me to see if Pope Francis will sign this?’” Tom recalled. “Because he would meet with Pope Francis regularly. And sure enough, ‘Francesco’ is at the bottom of the flag.”

Added Nick: “We just hit it off right away.”

The Gaynors’ Italian adventure ended with a special surprise: an audience with Pope Francis himself, outside of St. Peter’s Basilica. Michael was never the emotional type. But when he saw his wheelchair-bound son shake hands with a wheelchair-bound pope, he couldn’t help but cry.

One of Michael’s most profound moments would come near the end of his life. Less than a year later, he was diagnosed with stage 4 urothelial carcinoma. He died that August at age 66.

Michael never lived to see his improbable inkling come true. But on May 8, 2025, it did, when onetime Villanova student Bob Prevost was elected pope, and chose the name Leo. Watching from home on TV, Nick thought of his late father; how they had met not one Supreme Pontiff, but two.

What the Villanovan didn’t realize at the time was that he and the former archbishop would meet again.

The Gaynors were not just mourning a beloved husband and father, but also a caretaker who was dogged in his devotion. Michael and his wife, Debbie, always split duties among their twin boys — Nick’s brother, Christian, was also born with cerebral palsy.

The disorder impacted them differently. Christian couldn’t speak, and was cognitively and physically challenged. Nick was only challenged in the physical sense, which opened up opportunities like his role at Villanova.

Because Michael worked on campus, he’d take Nick with him in the morning, dropping off the undergrad at the Davis Center. The elder Gaynor would stick around for games and practices, sitting behind Nick on the bench, going back and forth between the gym and his office.

He’d accompany his son on long road trips with the team, lifting him in and out of his chair, in and out of planes, as Nick hung his arms around his shoulders. During these times, Debbie would often stay with Christian; changing him, feeding him, giving him his medication.

These were gestures of love, but required strenuous work. And when it was announced that Villanova would be headed to Rome for a men’s and women’s basketball doubleheader against Notre Dame on Nov. 1, Debbie wasn’t sure she and her son could partake.

They hadn’t gone on a trip by themselves before. There would be logistical complications. At home, Nick used a battery-powered wheelchair, but it would be too heavy to bring on the plane.

So, just as her late husband had three years earlier, Debbie would have to take his manual wheelchair, pushing it over centuries-old cobblestone, up and down steep Roman hills. This would be a physical feat over one day, let alone five.

She talked to Villanova’s athletic department, explaining the help she’d need in getting her son from one place to another. Their response was swift and unequivocal.

“They said, ‘Debbie, don’t worry. We understand,’” she recalled. “When I was told that that was a possibility, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I was overwhelmed. I knew that was something I’d want to do, and I know Michael would have done it.”

The school prepared for every contingency. Players, coaches, and spouses of staff took turns pushing Nick throughout the trip. Villanova provided not just a wheelchair-accessible bus, but also a van that could be used in case the bus malfunctioned (which it did, when a window broke).

To Dillon, this was the least the school could do. Gaynor was a constant presence around their team, even before she’d been hired in 2020. Her predecessor, Harry Perretta, said the manager was involved in “everything,” from statistical work to personal guidance.

One night, they were driving back to Philadelphia after a tough loss to Notre Dame. Nick was in the front seat, and his father was in the back.

“I’m b—ing and moaning and complaining,” Perretta recalled. “And he says, ‘Harry, you could always trade with me and take my chair!’”

As team ambassador, Nick is still on campus almost every day, doing much of the same work he was before, while “keeping spirits up,” just like he did with Perretta.

On Oct. 31 in Rome, he uplifted an entire auditorium. When Debbie and Nick arrived at the Paul VI Audience Hall after Mass, they thought they’d be in the wheelchair section, watching others meet with Pope Leo.

But all of a sudden, they were whisked from their positions and escorted up a ramp, toward a line of wheelchair-bound visitors on the stage.

Nick stuck out his hand. Leo shook it. Then, the Malvern native and the Chicago native leaned in for a hug, as the crowd of 6,000 burst into applause.

“I said, ‘Father, good to see ya,’” Nick recalled. “And he said, ‘Nick, you have a lot of friends out there.’”

Nick has since given his late father a nickname of his own. It’s “Saint Mike.” As a man who prided himself on humility, he might not have embraced this.

But the moniker is fitting. Michael was never outwardly religious. He didn’t talk at length about his faith, or his Catholic background. But he lived those values with every lift of his son, and push of his wheelchair.

And that effort changed Nick’s life. It wasn’t easy, but it was always worth it, just like this recent trip to Rome, which ended in the most serendipitous of ways.

Michael was not there in the physical sense. But when Debbie sat for Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica, she says she could feel her husband in the room. And when Nick shook hands with Pope Leo, he could tell his saint was looking down on him.

A few days later, while reminiscing on that moment, the boy turned to his mother.

“I think he had a good seat,” he said.

“He sure did,” she replied.