More than 1.4 billion Catholics are mourning the death of Pope Francis, the 266th leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
ELi spoke with two leaders of East Lansing’s St. Thomas Aquinas Parish. They discussed the impact Francis had on the 2,000-year-old church and their thoughts on the future of the faith.
“He was a bit of a dark horse in the last conclave,” said Father Gordon Reigle. “I wasn’t aware of him until he came out as pope. He was not on my radar at all. He was the first Latin American pope [which was] a beautiful thing to have someone from the southern hemisphere, where the church had been growing.”
Reigle has been in the priesthood for 20 years and a pastor in East Lansing for nearly seven…