Ten years after Pope Francis’s Sept. 22-24, 2015 apostolic visit to Washington, 12 people were interviewed about their memories of that papal visit, and their remembrances are being highlighted in a four-part series this week.
Pope’s surprise visit to the Little Sisters
Although the logistics for Pope Francis’s Sept. 22-24, 2015 visit to Washington had been planned for several months beforehand, the Little Sisters of the Poor found out on Sept. 23 that the pope would be paying a surprise visit to them that afternoon.
“It was closer to noon that we found out,” said Sister Constance Veit, communications director for the Little Sisters of the Poor. “Our superior and myself had gone to the White House (for the papal welcome there), and she had been tipped off ahead of time by the nuncio, but she only knew for sure at the White House when he told her, ‘It’s a go.’ She had been sworn to secrecy by the nuncio, so she had told us nothing.”
In an interview before the 10th anniversary of the papal visit, Sister Constance recalled what happened next. “So on the way home, the streets were already closed around here. We were trying to figure out what we should do when we got home, to be ready. Some people from the advance team came.”
The reaction of the Little Sisters at their Jeanne Jugan Residence for the elderly poor in Washington “was very excited, but at the same time, it was a little mixed,” Sister Constance said.
She said that Little Sisters of the Poor had come from some of their other homes in the United States to attend Pope Francis’s canonization Mass for St. Junípero Serra, the 18th century Franciscan missionary to California, at the nearby Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception that afternoon. But since Pope Francis would be stopping by the Little Sisters’ Washington home right after the Mass, the sisters couldn’t attend the first canonization to be held in the United States. So they watched it on TV in the community room.
In the few hours before the pope would be stopping by, the Little Sisters scrambled to prepare for his visit. The papal advance team decided that instead of the conference room, the chapel would be the best place for the approximately 45 Little Sisters to meet with the pope. But Sister Constance noted there was one snag to that – the chapel’s large crucifix behind the altar was missing, because it was being used at the canonization Mass in the sanctuary set-up outdoors at the National Shrine’s east portico.
“So the pope is coming to our chapel, and we don’t even have a crucifix on the wall, and we were a little bit beside ourselves about that, and so everything was kind of rushed, excited but anxious at the same time before he came,” Sister Constance said.
The chapel ended up working well for Pope Francis’s visit, because there was a door in the back leading to the outside, and the pope’s car could pull right up to that door.
“We were all in a big circle at the back of the chapel, and he never sat down or anything, he just went around the circle and spoke to each of us individually. So the space worked out perfectly, and he probably never noticed that we didn’t have a crucifix hanging in the prominent place you would expect one in a Catholic chapel. So it was wonderful,” Sister Constance said, laughing.
As she waited for her turn to meet Pope Francis, Sister Constance knew what she wanted to tell him. She thanked him for the attention he had already given to the elderly during the first two years of his pontificate. He responded, “Oh yes, that’s very necessary, it’s very needed in our society.”
Sister Constance remembered how Pope Francis spent time visiting with the two oldest Little Sisters there, including Sister Marie Mathilde, a native of Colombia who was 102 years old. “They spoke in Spanish. He asked her if she liked Argentinian wine, and she said, ‘No, Colombian coffee!’… It was all pretty funny.”
The pope’s visit with the Little Sisters lasted about 20 minutes total, but “it was all very personable,” Sister Constance said.
Pope Francis was accompanied by a translator as he went around the circle greeting each sister.
“When he came to the end, he went in the middle, and he gave us a little pep talk about caring for the elderly, and how important this work is, and he encouraged us, and he asked us to pray with him. So we said a Hail Mary together,” she said.
Reflecting on his visit there, Sister Constance said, “What struck me about him, and I’ll say this now that he’s in heaven, I remember I was about a quarter of the way around the circle, and as he approached me, I thought to myself, ‘He could be one of our residents if he didn’t have the white robe on of the pope.’ He looked so kind. He was maybe a little bit taller than I am. He just looked like an ordinary older man, and I just remember remarking that he could just be one of our old people. So I shook his hand and talked to him a little bit.”
Sister Constance said one of the hallmarks of Pope Francis’s papacy was his concern for the elderly. “I think as Holy Fathers go, he spoke more about the elderly and old age than any other pope,” she said.
She noted how when Pope Francis met with young people, “he talked with them about connecting with their grandparents, the older generation,” and she pointed out how he gave a long catechetical series on old age in 2022, and in the last talk, “he spoke about death, and he spoke about (how) our life on this earth is a time of sowing the seeds of eternal life.”
Asked about the legacy of Pope Francis, who died at the age of 88 on Easter Monday, April 21, 2025, after giving one last Easter blessing in St. Peter’s Square the previous day, Sister Constance said, “I really appreciated Pope Francis. To me, he’s the friend of the elderly, the pope of old age.”
Pope visits Saint John Paul II Seminary
Since the Saint John Paul II Seminary of the Archdiocese of Washington opened in 2011, the next generation of priests have been formed there for the archdiocese and for other dioceses across the United States.
On Sept. 23, 2015, a special role model for those seminarians and for the nation’s priests dropped by the Saint John Paul II Seminary, as Pope Francis paid a visit after celebrating the canonization Mass for St. Junípero Serra, the 18th century Franciscan missionary to California, at the nearby Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
The 49 seminarians and the priest faculty members there cheered wildly as the small black Fiat carrying Pope Francis pulled up the driveway there, accompanied by Cardinal Donald Wuerl, then the archbishop of Washington.
In his first remarks to them, the pope joked, “Thank you for the welcome. Now I suppose the same way you have welcomed me is the same way you always welcome your bishop!”
Interviewed in September 2025 about the 10th anniversary of the pope’s visit, Father Carter Griffin, the seminary’s rector, said what he remembered most about that day was “more than anything else, the excitement of the guys” to have the successor of St. Peter stop by.
“We’re used to going to Rome to see the pope, but to have the pope come visit us, was actually a very humbling experience, and especially for him to come not just to our city, not just to our country, but to come to our seminary and to speak to the guys from the heart, as he did so beautifully. It made a big impression on all of us,” Father Griffin said.
The priest, who was then serving as the seminary’s vice-rector and dean of students, noted that the seminarians and priests had practiced standing on the steps and then parting in the middle, so the pope could see the seminary’s door open and see the light shining on the tabernacle in the chapel.
“Hopefully he’d go up there and want to make a visit. We couldn’t lure him in!” Father Griffin said, smiling.
The rector said he was especially moved by something that Pope Francis asked the seminarians: “Do you adore God? Do you know how to adore? I know that you pray, that you ask, that you give thanks, that you worship – but do you adore? Have you learned how to adore, that which signifies the only important act of your day?”
Father Griffin said the pope’s words then reflect how “the foundation of our priesthood is in relationship to God, that a seminary is not a place where skills are simply learned, it’s not a place just to learn theology and philosophy or even to grow in friendship with other seminarians, or learn how to do pastoral work. It’s a place to fall in love, to fall in love with God. I think that’s what he was saying to us, as seminarians and as seminary faculty.”
Before he left the seminary, Pope Francis signed the guestbook there, writing:
“May the seminarians of Saint John Paul II Seminary grow daily in their love for Jesus and be his witnesses to the world… And please pray for me. Don’t forget!!”
Francis
Perspective from a seminarian who is now a priest
Before some of the seminarians at Saint John Paul II Seminary welcomed Pope Francis there on Sept. 23, 2015, they got to see him inside the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, joining young seminarians and women religious from around the country who were in the pews there that afternoon. Before celebrating the canonization Mass for St. Junípero Serra outside on the National Shrine’s east portico, Pope Francis walked inside the basilica to greet the seminarians and women religious there and give them a blessing.
Father Patrick Agustin, a priest of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington who was then studying as a seminarian at the Saint John Paul II Seminary and who was in that crowd in the basilica that afternoon, remembered, “It was amazing. It was electric… That was my first time seeing Pope Francis up close, and I just remember him going up the steps of the basilica and him giving us a blessing… We were cheering so loud.”
The priest – who now serves as the administrator of St. Cecilia Parish in St. Mary’s City and St. Peter Claver Parish in St. Inigoes and as the Catholic chaplain at St. Mary’s College of Maryland in St. Mary’s City – said, “I think he saw the future of the Church. It was packed. It was packed inside the basilica, and just to see so many young men and women, seminarians and religious, this is the future of the Church of America, and I just felt very blessed to be in that group.”
The seminarians and religious inside the basilica watched the Mass unfolding outside on a big screen, and at a certain point, the seminarians from Saint John Paul II Seminary left, escorted by the Secret Service as they walked back to the seminary to be there in time for the pope’s visit.
Father Agustin remembered how the seminarians there cheered, shouting “Francisco! Francisco!” as Pope Francis’s black Fiat pulled up.
Recalling his impressions of the pope’s visit to Saint John Paul II Seminary, the priest said, “For someone who was the vicar of Christ and the leader of then 1.2 billion Catholics, there wasn’t an air about him. He was so fatherly and warm. He wasn’t distant. There was no formality with him. He just came really as like a father to us, and he just spoke from his heart when he greeted us.”
Like Father Griffin, he was moved by the pope’s question to the seminarians: “Do you adore God?”
“I think that’s the heart of priestly ministry, it has to be rooted in prayer and abiding in the Father’s love, before anything else, before the doing,” Father Agustin said. “It’s not about the many programs we can do, it’s not about being super creative, it’s about spending time with the Lord and allowing that to flow into our ministry.”
Asked about what Catholics can take to heart from the example of Pope Francis, who died earlier this year on Easter Monday, April 21, 2025, Father Agustin said, “His simplicity. I think he showed us a new way to live simply, not just by his actions… And of course, mercy, his message of mercy, that we have to encounter people where they are, and accompany them.”
The priest also remembers something else that the pope told the seminarians at Saint John Paul II Seminary during his visit there 10 years ago.
“He said a good priest is the one who goes to bed tired each day, without the help of medicine. That I remember so well!” Father Agustin said, laughing. “That one stuck with me. So now as an administrator, I’m wearing three hats. I get it! But you know, being a priest now, ordained five years, I realize I really take to heart what he said back then. It’s not in the activity, though, like I’m not tired at the end of the day because of the activity. I’m tired because I poured out myself to my people that day. It’s not just the busyness. But you go to bed (and get) rested, (and think) ‘Today was a good day in the vineyard.’”
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10 years later: Excerpts from Pope Francis's talks during his 2015 visit to Washington
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Looking back 10 years after Pope Francis's visit to Washington: Part one, the pope arrives to a joyful welcome and visits cathedral
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Looking back 10 years after Pope Francis's visit to Washington: Part two, the pope celebrates an historic canonization Mass at National Shrine
