Pope Francis personally sent a special blessing to each of the families of the 10 people who lost their lives in the devastating Creeslough explosion as well as daily messages of support to the community, extra.ie can reveal.
Local parish priest, Fr John Joe Duffy, said the pontiff was among those who responded to his appeal for prayers to help carry the local community through its darkest hour.
Pope Francis personally packed individual sets of black and white rosary beads into simple pouches embossed with the papal emblem for the families who lost loved ones in the blast.
They were then placed into a white paper bag by the Pope, who gave the package to a priest who travelled to Donegal from the Vatican.
Speaking about the papal blessing, Fr Duffy said Pope Francis sent him daily messages saying ‘he was keeping us in his prayers’. Fr Duffysaid.
‘There were verbal messages each day from the Pope which were sent through by a friend, Fr Eamon McLoughlin, who is involved in the Seminary Foundation in the Vatican.
One of the priests in his department is also one of the people in the papal apartment. And every evening the Pope was asking, via him to Fr Eamon, about the situation in Creeslough.
‘Every day the Pope was sending messages via Fr Eamon to me that he was keeping us in his prayers and during that whole week he was asking about the situation in Creeslough and hearing about the situation, about the injured and the bereaved.
‘So the Pope was very knowledgeable about it and how people were. He showed great interest in it and was very, very, saddened.’
Fr Duffy continued: ‘Through Fr Eamon, he was saying he was very much keeping the families in his prayers, that he was keeping the injured very much in his prayers and keeping the whole community and all who were involved very much in his prayers.
‘He sent these rosaries for me to distribute among the families and he sent a rosary to me. It was very touching.
‘The Pope was very saddened by what happened and was very saddened of course by the fact that so many young people died.
He was particularly saddened that children had died in the tragedy.’
In an interview exactly a month after the tragedy, Fr Duffy said hundreds of people across Ireland and further afield wrote letters of support to the people of Creeslough by putting a stamp on an envelope and addressing it to him.
Pope Francis was joined by more than 70,000 people from across the world who tuned into St Michael’s Church in Creeslough so that they could virtually attend the funeral Masses of those killed in the devastating explosion that destroyed the local Applegreen garage and supermarket on October 7.
Among the stacks of letters in Fr Duffy’s house is a large black book of parchment paper bearing the name of every child in every class at Douglas Community School in Cork.
The priest said the huge outpouring of sympathy and support shown to his devastated parishioners was greatly appreciated by the people of Creeslough.