In Pittsburgh, Many Sentiments About Pope's Health Reflect Concern, Not Closeness

New York Times

01-03-2025

Congregants escaping the winter morning's chill trickled into Immaculate Heart of Mary Church for Sunday Mass last weekend. There was a time when the massive brick church, which stands like a beacon atop Pittsburgh's Polish Hill neighborhood, would have been packed with parishioners who lived in the surrounding blocks.
Mark Dobies and his wife, Kim, remember those days. Their grandfathers were among the Polish immigrants who built the church, whose interior is bathed in an ethereal light by the stained-glass windows. The couple, who live two blocks away, were married under the church's dome, as were their parents.
'I've watched it evolve,' Mr. Dobies said after Sunday's service, which resembled a pandemic Mass with far more pews empty than occupied. 'People migrated out of the city.'
This arc of a storied church in what was once a deeply Catholic city has in many ways mirrored what has taken place around the country, as ethnic congregations in working-class neighborhoods shriveled when manufacturing jobs disappeared. The church's long-running sexual abuse scandal only exacerbated the decline.
Now, that distancing from the church might be seen here in another way: the relative ambivalence toward Pope Francis, whose health is increasingly frail. There might be an occasional candle lit in Pittsburgh for Francis, the 88-year-old pontiff, but there are no massive public vigils or signs of a community on edge.
'I'm praying, but I don't know a lot about him,' Carol Novak said after a Monday morning Mass at St. Anthony Chapel, a quaint church in the Troy Hill neighborhood that boasts of housing more relics than anywhere outside of Rome.
Almost from the start of his papacy, in 2013, Pope Francis signaled that he was more open to change than his predecessors — the charismatic John Paul II and the scholarly Benedict.
He has spoken out for the poor, preached tolerance for gay people and encouraged more opportunities for women in the church. But Francis has not followed through forcefully enough to please some who want reforms for the church. To them, at times, he has seemed purposely murky, in the Jesuit tradition of prompting questions rather than providing answers.
He did this notably when he responded to a reporter's question about the presence of gay people in the clergy by saying, 'Who am I to judge?'
Recently, though, he has not been so equivocal.
Francis criticized President Trump's immigration policy as inhumane in a letter to bishops, scolding Vice President JD Vance, who is Catholic, for suggesting that Americans were right to take care of their own before aiding others. 'Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,' the pontiff wrote.
In Pittsburgh, over the last decade or so, churches have closed and consolidated, creating new parishes that reflected not just a decline in churchgoers but also a shortage of clergy members.
Six century-old Catholic churches, including Immaculate Heart of Mary and St. Anthony, have been branded under the banner Shrines of Pittsburgh, an effort to leverage their history and architectural splendor to regain relevance. St. Nicholas Church in the Millvale neighborhood houses murals by the renowned Croatian artist Maxo Vanka, whose 1930s paintings depict the immigrant experience with still-current themes like income inequality.
This revitalization effort seems to have worked best at St. Stanislaus Church in the city's Strip District, a popular stretch of ethnic food shops that has retained its soul despite soaring neighborhood housing prices.
The modestly sized St. Stanislaus was recently packed for two Sunday morning services, where a portrait of Pope Francis, flanked by a pair of burning candles, was propped up near the altar. Later, a cardboard cutout of the pope was affixed to the church's front door.
'The marketing and image that America sells — that everybody is equal — is false,' said Liliana Perilla Rojas, originally from Colombia, who recently moved to Pittsburgh from Florida, where she worked as a dental hygienist. Ms. Perilla had stepped inside St. Stanislaus on a recent afternoon to say a prayer for the Argentine pope, who she said was far more revered in Latin America than in the United States.
'If the next pope is not going to be progressive, we're done,' she said, fearing that the Catholic church would continue to lose relevance.
One block south of St. Stanislaus, Carlo Dozzi and Joe Sabino Mistick landed on different sides of the divide as they sipped coffee drinks at La Prima Espresso Company.
The liturgical odd couple have known each other for years, crossing paths when Mr. Dozzi, in the construction business, would question Mr. Mistick, a mayoral adviser in the 1990s, about city land policy. They had both trained to enter the priesthood as young men.
From one side of a high-top table, Mr. Dozzi, 82, said he respected the institution of the pope. 'And I believe he's a good man,' he said. 'But I don't like his views on same-sex marriage.'
Mr. Dozzi considers himself a traditionalist who says his prayers in Latin. 'The church is the center of my existence,' he said. 'My whole life revolves around the church.' But he also acknowledges that this pope's messages resonate with younger people whom the church desperately needs. 'Kids flock to him,' he said.
From the other side of the table, Mr. Mistick, 75, who teaches at Duquesne law school, described himself as a wandering Catholic who never lost his appreciation for rituals.
'I like Francis because he lived his life before the church and he remains a regular guy,' Mr. Mistick said, noting that the pope had once worked as a bouncer. 'None of our leaders are viewed with the same reverence as they used to be. But if the pope has a clear and strong voice, he can be a leader who can tell you what the right path is. I think he's a moral guide. He's the pope for everyone.'