Outside the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in the South End, black banners were draped around the entry doors as scattered groups of people entered to pray in honor of Pope Francis, who died early in the morning Easter Monday. 

After a series of recent severe health struggles, the Vatican announced April 21 around 9:45 a.m. that a stroke put the pope into a coma, ultimately leading to heart failure. He was 88. 

While thousands of people from across the world gathered in downtown Boston Monday to cheer on runners in the Boston Marathon, some around the city and Emerson campus spent the day mourning the loss of Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Francis was the first Latin American pontiff of the Catholic Church whom the Associated Press described as having charmed the world with “his humble style and concern for the poor but alienated conservatives with critiques of capitalism and climate change.”

Francis chose his name in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, the Italian saint who gave his money to the poor and lived in poverty. When he was elected 2013, he said he chose the name because the 13th century saint “is the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation.”

“He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage, and universal love, especially in favor of the poorest and most marginalized,” said Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, when announcing the Pope’s death Monday morning.

At the beginning of his papacy, the Pope moved into the Vatican guest house instead of the usual Pope’s apartment and has continually given away his salary to various causes. He is also remembered for his welcoming stance on immigration and LGBTQ+ rights. In 2023, he denounced the criminalization of homosexuality, and in 2019, he donated half a million dollars to support migrants living in Mexico. 

“Men and women, often with young children, flee poverty and violence, hoping for a better future in the United States. However, the US border remains closed to them,” Peter’s Pence, the Pope’s charity, said in a statement to CNN.

Senior journalism major Anna Woods, a member of Emerson Christian Fellowship who is a non-denominational Christian, lovingly remembers “Papa Francisco” as an inviting priest who broke tradition and welcomed everyone.

She recalled seeing him wave to the crowd last year when she was studying abroad in Rome. When talking to The Beacon, she became choked up, explaining that she didn’t think it would be the last time she’d get to see him there.

“I’m not a Catholic, but I respect that he was a Pope that made it feel a bit more welcome to everybody,” Woods said.

Francis was a pacifist who denounced war and encouraged others to do so; In his last public message before his death, he called for peace in war-battered places like Ukraine, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and a ceasefire in Gaza.

Senior screenwriting major Sofia Farrés grew up Catholic in Florida and remembered the “uproar” from people around her when Francis was announced the new Pope. She was “devastated” by his passing, and remembered him as having “finally steered the Church into this century.”

“The more I learned about him the more I felt like he embodied all things I’d been taught in my religion classes about Jesus quite beautifully,” Farrés said. 

His words influenced not just religious leaders but secular ones; Mayor Michelle Wu remembered Francis as a “global advocate for the marginalized and a moral force in the fight for climate justice.” She recalled joining him last year at the Vatican’s Climate Summit in an Instagram post.

“Leaders around the world gathered to reflect on our shared responsibility to protect creation,” she wrote. “His message was clear: we must rise to this moment with urgency and courage.”

The Vatican has publicly tusseled with the Trump Administration in recent months, criticizing Trump’s deportation plans and USAID cuts. But Vice President JD Vance was one of the last political leaders to see him not even a day before his death, the two meeting for a brief 17 minutes at the Vatican during which the Pope gave him chocolate Easter eggs for his kids. Vance met with his secretary and foreign minister the day prior. 

“My heart goes out to the millions of Christians all over the world who loved him,” Vance wrote in a post on X the next day. “I was happy to see him yesterday, though he was obviously very ill. But I’ll always remember him for the below homily he gave in the very early days of COVID. It was really quite beautiful.”  

Earlier this year, Francis appeared to clap back at Vance, who is an adult Catholic convert, after Vance used medieval catholic doctrine to justify his administration’s policies on immigration. In a letter, Francis seemed to imply their policies violate the “infinite and transcendent dignity of every human person.”

Francis gained both widespread praise and disapproval for his stance on capitalism, early on in his papacy, calling it “a new tyranny” and an “economy of exclusion and inequality” that had proven to be deadly worldwide.

After conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh criticized him for what they called “pure Marxism,” the Pope continually insisted that a concern for the poor and condemning the idolatry of wealth that “makes people indifferent to the poor” is a fundamental value of Christianity. 

“Caring for our neighbor, for those who are poor, who suffer in body and soul, for those who are in need: this is the touchstone. Is it pauperism? No. It is the Gospel,” he said.

Outside St. Anthony’s Shrine, a Catholic church in Downtown Crossing, Natalia, 24, who works at a bank, stopped to honor Pope Francis midday before seeing the Church closed early for Patriot’s Day. 

“He was so good with young people,” she remembered, referencing Francis’ Synod on Young People from 2018, where he called youth the “living hope of the church.”

“I encourage you never to leave us without your good way of ‘making a mess,’ your drive, like that of a clean and well-tuned engine, and your own particular way of living and proclaiming the joy of the risen Jesus,” he said.

When Woods was in Rome last year, the Pope opened the Holy Doors, which are from important Catholic basilicas that represent the path to Salvation and are only opened roughly every quarter century, at Rome’s Rebibbia New Complex Prison. Woods was moved to hear that was the first time in history the doors were opened in a prison.

“He wanted [the Catholic church] to be for everybody again, and I think that’s what’s most beautiful about him,” said Woods.