Pope Francis mourned by New Yorkers who recall historic 2015 visit to the city

Sheetal Banchariya, Rebecca White, Leonard Greene, New York Daily News on Apr 21, 2025

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NEW YORK — Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the leader of New York’s nearly 3 million Catholics said Pope Francis’ death the day after Easter couldn’t have been choreographed any better.

“I was honored to participate in the conclave that elected Pope Francis in 2013, and to have welcomed him here to New York in 2015,” Dolan said hours after the Argentina native, 88, died in Rome on Monday morning following a series of health issues.

“He touched us all with his simplicity, with his heart of a humble servant. Trusting in the tender and infinite mercy of Jesus, we pray that he is, even now, enjoying his eternal reward in heaven.”

Dolan joined Catholics worldwide and across the city with remembrances of a spiritual leader known for his humility and courage for his moves toward modernizing the far-reaching church.

Even though Pope Francis had been sick for a while, battling double pneumonia in a recent hospital stay that stretched beyond a month, Dolan said he could not get over the timing of the pontiff’s death.

“The last time we saw him, Easter Sunday ... [he gave] the last words of blessed Easter as he gave us his blessing,” Dolan said at Manhattan’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral. “You couldn’t choreograph it better, the way he lived and the way he died. A great teacher.”

Mayor Eric Adams reflected on meeting the pope last year, and ordered flags to fly at half-staff throughout the city.

“Pope Francis led with kindness, grace, and faith as he helped build a better world and unite all people, regardless of their background,” Adams said in a statement. “His decades of spreading peace and love will forever be remembered.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is Catholic met Pope Francis during a Vatican climate summit last year.

She said the pope “embodied the values Christ taught us every day: Helping the less fortunate, calling for peace, and ensuring every person is treated as a child of God.

“We should all strive to carry on his legacy,” she added in a statement.

Faithful throughout the city — many Catholic, many not — said prayers and shared remembrances of the Vatican’s first pontiff from South America.

But few were more special than the memories of the students and staff of Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic School, the East Harlem school Pope Francis visited during a 2015 trip to New York City.

“Dear children, you have a right to dream, and I am very happy to be here in this school,” the pope told the students that day. “In your friends and your teachers, you can find the support you need. Wherever there are dreams, there is joy. Jesus is always present. Because Jesus is joy, and he wants to help us to feel that joy every day of our lives.”

Sister Sr. Mary Grace Walsh, the New York Archdiocese Superintendent of Schools, said she was moved that day by his message of hope and encouragement.

“He was a living testimony to the power of prayer,” she said in a statement. “He repeatedly reminded us that our prayer is more than words. It is an encounter with the Lord who loves us.”

The pontiff’s New York trip was a whirlwind visit. He spoke at the United Nations’ General Assembly. He attended a multifaith ceremony at the 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center. And he went to Madison Square Garden to deliver a Mass to more than 20,000 at The World’s Most Famous Arena.

“I feel like he had a very merciful, loving approach to just all kinds of people,” Dylan Cambrie, 23, who was visiting St. Patrick’s Cathedral from South Carolina.

“He had open arms toward people who may not come from a religious background, which I think made him a lot more of a popular Pope in the secular world as well. I know people who are not religious who still had a lot of respect for him.”

Cambrie said he liked the pope’s outreach to refugees and immigrants.

“ I think with the current political climate, especially in the United States, that there’s a huge divide,” Cambrie said.

“Even in the church, there’s a lot of people who I feel look down upon refugees and immigrants. And he was always very vocal about treating them with respect, and that they’re also souls trying to get to heaven. I just admire that.”

Even during his last full day on Earth, Pope Francis championed the people of his global parish.

His final Easter address called for an end to worldwide violence and compassion for the world’s marginalized people.

“There can be no peace without freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of expression and respect for the views of others,” he said, according to remarks released by the Vatican. “May the principle of humanity never fail to be the hallmark of our daily actions.”