Francis makes unexpected visit to St. Joe's
Natalie Roche wept when the president of St. Joseph's University gave her the news Sunday: In just over an hour, Pope Francis would visit the school - an unplanned, surprise stop in a two-day whirlwind schedule - and she would meet him.
Natalie Roche wept when the president of St. Joseph's University gave her the news Sunday: In just over an hour, Pope Francis would visit the school - an unplanned, surprise stop in a two-day whirlwind schedule - and she would meet him.
The 20-year-old junior elementary-education major from Bethlehem will never forget the moment the pontiff took her hand.
"Thank you for your love and happiness," Roche, vice president of the student body, told him.
Pope Francis smiled, she said, and told her: "I pray for you, as you pray for me."
Students, staff, and faculty at St. Joseph's had been hoping for months that the pope would visit their City Avenue campus, with a population of 4,550 undergraduates.
He is after all the first Jesuit pope, and St. Joseph's is Philadelphia's Jesuit university. And Pope Francis would be driving through the heart of the campus to get to St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, where he spent Saturday night.
But until Sunday, there was no indication he'd make an appearance.
All that changed Sunday morning when Vatican officials talked of a stop at the campus to bless a statue commemorating Catholic-Jewish relations that the university had dedicated Friday. The statue, Synagoga and Ecclesia in Our Time, in the plaza in front of St. Joseph's Chapel, is important to Francis and his dear friend Rabbi Abraham Skorka of Buenos Aires, who came to Philadelphia for the dedication and the pope's visit. Leaders of St. Joseph's Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations, founded in 1967, met Skorka in Argentina last year and began plans for the statue, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the Vatican II document that changed the relationship between the Catholic and Jewish faiths.
"We are deeply grateful he made time to highlight how important that relationship is," said Philip A. Cunningham, who codirects the institute along with Adam Gregerman.
"It's really a fantastic confluence of events," said Skorka, who accompanied Pope Francis from the seminary to the campus. The Vatican, he noted, deemed the statue and what it stands for so important that it was decided the visit had to be part of the pope's itinerary.
Hundreds of students, staff, faculty, and alumni - some sitting on the shoulders of others to get a better view, some watching from windows overlooking the plaza - greeted the pope as he arrived shortly after 2:30 p.m.
"It was unreal," said Nicholas Chingas, 21, a senior from Newtown and student body president. "I'm sure as time goes on I'll be able to grasp what happened a little bit better."
Chingas, a finance and economics major, and Roche were the only two students chosen to greet the pope.
His visit was brief.
"That four or five minutes means a lifetime," said Mark C. Reed, who became St. Joe's first lay president in its 164-year history this summer.
The pontiff prayed in front of the statue, made by Philadelphia artist Joshua Koffman, sprinkled holy water on it, and blessed it. The statue includes an inscription of a quotation by Francis: "There exists a rich complementarity between the church and the Jewish people that allows us to help one another mine the riches of God's word."
As he departed, students cheered and sang the school's fight song. Reed explained.
"I said to the pope . . . they wanted him to know that the Hawk will never die," Reed said. "He gave a thumbs-up and with that he was on his way."
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