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.
Building altars for two papal Masses
Taking a pause from work at his Saint Joseph’s Carpentry in rural Poolesville, Maryland, Deacon Dave Cahoon said the opportunity to build the altar for Pope Benedict XVI’s Mass at Nationals Park in Washington in 2008 and then to lead a team of 17 craftspeople in building the altar for Pope Francis’s canonization Mass for St. Junípero Serra at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in 2015 “just was like the two things God had called me to do in my life coming together.”
During an interview about the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’s visit to Washington, Deacon Cahoon said reflecting on those experiences harkened back to something he had learned from the old Baltimore Catechism: “Why did God make me? To know him, to love him and to serve him in this life, so I might be happy with him forever in the next, to be a saint.”
“I think reflecting back on it, 10 years later, that still resounds,” he said.
The altar that Deacon Cahoon built for Pope Benedict’s Mass at Nationals Park is now used in the chapel at the Saint John Paul II Seminary of the Archdiocese of Washington.
Like the earlier papal altar, the altar for Pope Francis’s Mass at the National Shrine was designed by architecture students at The Catholic University of America. But Deacon Cahoon noted that altar was designed and built so it would also serve afterward as the basilica’s permanent altar. “It had to look well with the décor and everything in there,” he said, noting that the altar had to be portable so it could be moved for different liturgies during the year at the National Shrine.
As he was building the altar for Pope Francis’s 2015 Mass at the National Shrine, Deacon Cahoon said he was inspired by the pontiff’s encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’, On Care for Our Common Home, that was issued earlier that year.
“I read that encyclical, and it touched my heart… I just made sure that Pope Francis is coming here to do it, and he said the care of our earthly home is important to him, it just seemed that should be in keeping with that. It pretty much guided everything I did,” he said.
In an earlier interview, Deacon Cahoon said he made sure to use materials for the altar that did not involve any exploitation of the environment or of native workers. The altar included a colonnade of 10 individual columns crafted from poplar, with its main structure made of medium density fiber board, and it has a solid stone top made of Italian marble. The wood altar was painted with a faux marble finish to match the color of the basilica’s columns.
The deacon joked that at Pope Benedict’s Mass, “I got a nosebleed section (seat) at the top” of that baseball stadium… “I was so beat from the whole week setting that thing up, that I fell asleep… People would say, ‘Hey, did you get to go?’”
Then seven years later after he and his team completed the altar for Pope Francis’s Mass at the east portico of the National Shrine, he and his wife Rani got front row seats.
“Well of course Pope Francis rides around in the back (in the popemobile before the Mass), because he wants to be with the people, which was fine (with me)!” Deacon Cahoon said, laughing at that memory. “People would say, ‘Hey, did you get to meet him, did you get to touch him?’ The only thing I can say is I touched something that he touched. That was cool. I was really happy with that.”
The deacon and carpenter said he loved Pope Francis’s “humble servant’s heart.”
When asked what it meant for him to see that pope celebrate Mass on the altar that he helped build, the deacon said, “I’m still tingling, I just get tingly again. For me, I’ve made a lot of altars, doing this business for 40 years, and I get to kneel at the altar at St. Mary’s in Barnesville that I made. That still gives me tingles there. For me, I’ve always had a love for the Eucharist, (believing) this is truly God that we receive.”
At St. Mary’s Church in Barnesville, where Deacon Cahoon has served for 34 years, he also helped restore the old steeple. Recently he completed a replica tableau, an ornate backdrop for sculpted figures in a crucifixion scene at a house in Emmitsburg, Maryland where St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and her first Sisters of Charity once lived and prayed.
He named his carpentry shop after St. Joseph, the carpenter and foster father of Jesus, and he tries to emulate his shop’s patron saint. “I think for him, work was a prayer,” said Deacon Cahoon, who is now working on a four-story staircase. Walking outside his shop, he noted he has a sawmill that he uses to salvage wood from logs delivered there.
Reflecting on what it means to him that the altar that he helped build is now the main altar at the National Shrine, the largest Catholic Church in the United States, and how he was blessed to build altars for two papal Masses in Washington, Deacon Cahoon smiled and said, “Inconceivable, and somewhere in the background is, maybe I’ll get to do three popes. You know, Pope Leo, he’s American. I don’t have any connections. But I can only just imagine. I mean, who can say they did two (altars for papal Masses)?”
A ‘picture perfect day’ and an unforgettable Mass
Pope Francis made history in celebrating the canonization Mass for St. Junípero Serra at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Sept. 23, 2015. The canonization of the famous 18th century Franciscan missionary to California marked the first such Mass celebrated in the United States.
In comments emailed to the Catholic Standard, Msgr. Walter Rossi, the basilica’s rector, reflected on what he remembered most about that canonization Mass.
“What first comes to mind is that the day of the canonization was ‘picture perfect,’ a beautiful blue sky, and the weather was excellent. The second is seeing all the people standing on the front steps of the shrine to greet Pope Francis on his arrival and then the 25,000 people seated on the east side of the shrine as well as the lawn of our neighbor, The Catholic University of America,” Msgr. Rossi said.
Asked what he found most inspiring about that Mass, the National Shrine’s rector said, “It was truly an exciting, wonderful day, from the arrival of Pope Francis to the sound of the bells of the Knights Tower pealing, to the thunderous applause of those gathered in the Great Upper Church when Pope Francis walked through the doors, and then the beautiful Mass in which Junípero Serra was canonized, making him the 13th saint of the United States. I was also impressed by the fact that with 25,000 people present for the Mass, it was prayerful, reverent, and inspiring.”
Nearly 10 years after his pastoral visit to Washington, Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, April 21, 2025. Reflecting on that pope’s legacy, Msgr. Rossi said, “Pope Francis leaves a legacy from which many lessons can be learned. At the conclusion of the Mass of Canonization, Pope Francis quoted St. Junípero Serra’s motto, “siempre adelante” (which means) “always forward,” encouraging those who were present and the world to always move forward nourished and sustained by the joy of the Gospel and to offer to everyone the life of Jesus Christ through the witness of our own lives.”
Assisting Pope Francis at the papal Mass
Serving as the pastor of St. Michael’s Parish in Ridge in his native Southern Maryland, Father Keith Burney says “there’s just that feeling of being home.”
The priest who was ordained in 2016 grew up attending St. John Francis Regis Parish in Hollywood, and his family has deep roots in St. Mary’s County.
Ten years ago, he was among five seminarians for the Archdiocese of Washington who as transitional deacons were chosen to assist Pope Francis at the canonization Mass for St. Junípero Serra at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Sept. 23, 2015, during that pope’s pastoral visit to Washington.
Beforehand, then-Deacon Burney and the other four deacon seminarians who would be assisting at the Mass left Catholic University’s nearby Theological College where they were studying and “wandered over to the basilica and got through security.” They lined up with other seminarians and servers to meet the pope before Mass.
“I know a little bit of Spanish because I took it in high school, and I practiced in my mind… I was going to say something to the effect of, ‘We love you, Holy Father,’” Father Burney remembered, adding, “I got the opportunity to shake his hand, but he was quickly ushered away, and I didn’t even have a chance to say what I practiced that I was going to say.”
In an earlier interview, he said that while meeting Pope Francis in the basilica’s sacristy, he was struck by “the kindness in his eyes.”
At the papal Mass, then-Deacon Burney served as the deacon of the Eucharist. Reflecting on what that experience was like for him, Father Burney said he was focused on very practical things during the Mass: “You’re aware of the large crowd, you’re aware of the television cameras, and this is being televised everywhere, and of course, for me, it’s like, okay don’t trip, don’t hit the Holy Father with the thurible when I’m incensing him, don’t drop the chalice when you’re holding it up.”
He and his fellow seminarians who as deacons were assisting at the Mass had the opportunity to give the sign of peace to the Holy Father. “We did it as an embrace, not just a shaking of hands, so to have the opportunity to embrace the Holy Father,” was a profound experience, he said, adding that they also received Holy Communion directly from the pope.
After the Mass, then-Deacon Burney turned his phone back on, and he had a flurry of text messages and screenshots taken from the TV footage of him beside the pope, sent by his family members and friends.
The altar that Pope Francis used to celebrate the canonization Mass is now the permanent altar at the National Shrine, and nine months later, Father Burney was ordained to the priesthood there, and he joined his fellow newly ordained priests in concelebrating that Mass at the altar that they had stood around while assisting at the papal Mass. Whenever he returns to the basilica to concelebrate a Mass, “I’m taken back every time to the Mass of Pope Francis,” he said.
Now sometimes when Father Burney visits Catholic students, he tells them about assisting Pope Francis at that papal Mass, and he jokes that he “peaked early” as a clergyman.
In the interview, Father Burney added, “I feel blessed that I was privileged to be a deacon at that place at that time, to be selected for that.” He smiled and jokingly wondered, who would ever think a guy from Hollywood or St. Mary’s County would have the opportunity to serve a Mass with the pope as a deacon?
But the pastor at home in Southern Maryland noted, “But I’m even more blessed now… I feel more blessed just being a parish priest.”
He added, “To celebrate the sacraments, to celebrate the Eucharist with people is the very highlight of being a priest. But I think what is unique about parish priesthood is that you live out your priesthood with your people, in community with your people. So I am doing this in the midst of, and for the sake of, this community here in Ridge… When you’re a parish priest, they call us Father, which is humbling in and of itself, because so many of my parishioners are old enough to be my father or my mother, but they call you Father, and you are meant to be the father of this parish family.”
