This story was originally published in The Morning Call in 2015.
That Pope Francis would come to Philadelphia was always an ill-kept secret. The pope himself mentioned it during a 2014 interview. So did Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput.
But none of that mattered until the Vatican finally confirmed the visit, sending Philadelphia into a frenzy of preparation that culminated in a long, giddy weekend of welcome at the end of September.
The irrepressible Argentine pontiff did all that was expected of him — saying Masses, making speeches, kissing babies — and some that wasn’t.
At the Festival of Families, for example, a massive rally and concert on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Francis ditched his prepared remarks and embarked on a freewheeling and funny riff about the joys and challenges of family life.
Throughout center city, crowds of pilgrims wandered the closed streets, hoping for glimpses of Francis along his motorcade routes.
Merchandise hawkers, musicians, dancers and even megaphone-toting protesters railing against “pope worship” made for a high-octane buzz, one that began even before the Francis’ plane touched down at Philadelphia International Airport on the afternoon of Sept. 25.
Not since Pope St. John Paul II in 1979 had a pope visited the city, and expectations were high. Officials predicted as many as 1.5 million people would turn out for the Sept. 27 Mass on Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
The crowd wasn’t nearly that big with some speculating that organizers’ warnings of a packed city kept many away.
The most generous estimates put the number of people in the parkway in the low hundreds of thousands. But including the other papal events, and the weeklong World Meeting of Families that preceded the visit, the city probably welcomed in excess of 1 million visitors, officials said.
Francis made an indelible impression, drawing throngs of cheering faithful every step of the way.
At Independence Hall, he spoke from the same podium used by Abraham Lincoln for the Gettysburg Address. He offered Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul, visited inmates at a prison, exhorted bishops at a seminary to rekindle their energy and, finally, offered Sunday Mass in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
As he departed for Rome, Francis spoke of the good he had seen in his first American visit, and reminders of evil, such as the memorial at ground zero in New York.
“Yet we know with certainty that evil never has the last word,” he said. “In God’s merciful plan, love and peace triumph over all.”
Remembering Pope Francis visit to Philadelphia in 2015 | PHOTOS