‘Important thing to be able to witness’: Praying for Pope Francis at Wichita church

Jason Houpt held the rosary as he and his girlfriend, Bella Petrakis, prayed for Pope Francis during a service Saturday morning at Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Wichita.

“I think Francis’ impact on the church in the last 12 years has been really great and his compassion for people who are marginalized should be celebrated,” said Petrakis, 26.

Saturday’s Wichita service was an opportunity for local Catholic faithful to participate in remembrance of Francis, who was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio and died on Monday at age 88.

An estimated 250,000 people, including royalty and presidents, including U.S. President Donald Trump, had attended Francis’ funeral in Rome also on Saturday morning, according to Vatican figures.

Houpt and Petrakis both attend the church. Houpt, a 27-year-old former college basketball player, said he was a recent convert and felt it was important to attend since coming back to the church.

“It was an important thing to be able to witness,” he said.

Francis was elected pope in March 2013, succeeding Pope Benedict XVI after his resignation in February of the same year.

Bishop Carl A. Kemme, who was appointed to his position in Wichita by Francis, also touched on Francis’ love for marginalized during the service attended by about 80 people.

“Like every leader, especially those on the world stage, Pope Francis had his many admirers and his critics. I for one, was an admirer of him,” Kemme said. “A few months after my own consecration here in the cathedral, I had the great honor of going to Rome with all the other bishops that he had appointed in that period of time. And at the end of our time together, we had the blessing of meeting him personally. Our meeting was very brief, of course, since there were over 200 of us in our group, but in those few short moments, I was moved personally by his captivating smile, his engaging eyes, and the warmth of his reading and his handshake. In those few moments, I felt like I was the only person in the room.”

Kemme said it was the same way the other three times he met him.

“All of this reminds me, in a powerful way, that for Pope Francis, the individual person right in front of him was always his sole focus,” Kemme said. “Pope Francis had a heart for people, especially the simple, the humble, the poor, the marginalized, how inspiring it was for us to see year after year on Holy Thursday (he would) go to prisons to wash the feet of prisoners or to host a lunch for the homeless and the poor of Rome, where he sat among them and enjoyed their company, or to touch and interact with people most of us ... we would shy away from. And this was not fake or staged, but real, true humanity. In these gestures, we saw the human person who occupied the throne of Saint Peter, who tried as best as he could in our modern world to be Christ’s representative on Earth.”

Francis’ funeral starts the beginning of nine days of mourning called Novemdiales.

Following the vacancy of the pope position, the papal conclave must convene within 15 to 20 days and begin the task of voting for the 267th pope, which will likely be among the group of the 135 cardinals, a majority of which were appointed by Francis, who are under the age of 80 and can vote.