York County faithful to make trek for papal visit

As more than 1 million people flood Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia next Sunday with the hope of catching at least a glimpse of Pope Francis saying Mass, a handful of York County residents will be among them, eager to witness history.

The pope will make his first visit to the United States this week, with stops in Washington, D.C., New York City and Philadelphia. His East Coast tour will conclude Sunday with Mass at the World Meeting of Families Congress.

This is the first time the United States has hosted the World Meeting of Families, which has been held every three years since 1994, and organizers are expecting around 1.5 million people in Philadelphia.

The Catholic Diocese of Charleston, which comprises all of South Carolina, is taking a contingency of about 40 people to Philadelphia for the week-long conference. Their bus leaves Monday from St. Philip Neri Catholic Church in Fort Mill.

“It’s great to be a part of that number,” said Kathy Schmugge, who lives in Fort Mill and is director of family life for the Diocese of Charleston. She called the Philadelphia gathering a “welcoming committee” for the pontiff’s first pilgrimage to the United States since his papacy began in March 2013.

Francis’ schedule includes a visit with President Barack Obama and speeches before Congress and the United Nations, but the primary reason for the pope’s visit is the World Meeting of Families, which Schmugge said traditionally concludes with a papal visit.

The busload of people traveling to Philadelphia includes members of St. Philip Neri, Schmugge said. Other South Carolinians will be joining them, including a couple from Columbia whose daughter surprised them with the trip as a birthday present and a mother from Conway with two young children.

“It’s like suddenly you’re unified because you’re all there,” Schmugge said. “We love our pope; we love our church. “There’s such joy and a wonderful feeling.

“When you’re in this large, gigantic crowd – whether you’re up close or way in the back – you’re part of this one breathing pulse of love for the church and God and our wonderful leaders.”

Father Jim Moran, a member of The Oratory Catholic community in Rock Hill, remembers seeing Pope John Paul II at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia during a 1987 visit to the University of South Carolina.

“It’s an overwhelming experience,” he said. “You realize how much solidarity there is – that you’re not alone, that there are this many other Christians, this many other Catholics.

“It’s sort of like showing up at a family reunion, and you say, ‘Wow, we’ve got this many cousins?’”

Moran, who serves as chaplain of the Knights of Columbus fraternal society at St. Anne Catholic Church in Rock Hill, will travel to Philadelphia with members of that group. About 50 people will depart with the Knights group Saturday, including 31 from the Sumter area, said Ray Howard, the society’s trustee who is coordinating the trip. Not all of those going are members of the Knights of Columbus.

“I could probably run another half a bus up there, because people keep calling and asking,” Howard said. “It’s an ‘experience of a lifetime’ kind of thing. Just in general, from a Catholic standpoint, it’s a big event to see the leader of our faith. Because of his general demeanor, he’s a very popular person.”

Pope Francis has surprised many inside and outside the Catholic faith with his recent statements on gay marriage, divorce and income inequality, many of which have been received as something of a softening of the church’s historically staunch positions.

The pope is expected to visit with homeless people, immigrant families and prison inmates while in the U.S. Moran says Pope Francis’ “down-to-earth, very approachable style” has set him apart from other pontiffs.

“He wants to be able to take his dinner tray across the same table and find out what the chef thinks about him, not what somebody’s telling him they think about him,” Moran said. “I find him very much to be an ordinary person.”

Brother David Boone, also a member of The Oratory, isn’t making the trek, but he can appreciate the high level of ceremony and reverence associated with seeing the pope in person. He saw Pope John Paul II in Rome in 1975, along with 180,000 other faithful packed into a courtyard.

“We had to be in our seats two hours before the event,” he recalled. “This will be probably (Pope Francis’) only visit here in this area during his lifetime.”

The trip for both groups also will be educational. The Knights of Columbus group plans to stop at the John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., and the Diocese of Charleston group is planning a stop at the Mount St. Mary’s University Seminary and the National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg, Md.

While in Philadelphia, the group plans to pay homage to the pope by celebrating his giving spirit, Schmugge said. They’ll have two homemade blankets that are made by tying together the fringed edges of two sheets of fleece fabric.

Each knot is symbolic of a problem in the life of each person making the blanket, Schmugge said, a nod toward the pope’s devotion to “Our Lady Undoer of Knots” – one of the many devotions to Mary, the mother of Jesus. The plan is to give one blanket away to someone in need in Philadelphia, and the other to someone in need in Fort Mill.

“In our lives, we have knots and problems and struggles,” Schmugge said. “Praying and asking the Lord to help, and for us to help others, is the idea behind the blanket. Once we’ve completed it, now we’ve worked as a community – our struggles together, lifting it to the Lord and giving that blanket to someone who needs it.

“Together, we all have struggles. We share them, we help each other and things get better.”

This story was originally published September 19, 2015 at 8:35 PM with the headline "York County faithful to make trek for papal visit."