Monsignor Eamonn McLaughlin says he will pray for the intentions of people across the Raphoe Diocese each morning at the tomb of Pope Francis.
The Downings native is a Canon of the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome where the late pontiff was laid to rest on Saturday.
As a Canon in the basilica, Monsignor McLaughlin was in attendance when Pope Francis’s remains were brought to be entombed.
Last year, Pope Francis appointed Monsignor McLaughlin as the Undersecretary for the Dicastery for Clergy, Seminary Section, meaning he became one of the senior officials in the congregation of clergy around the world.
He is also the Vatican official responsible for seminaries and the formation of priests.
Monsignor McLaughlin is involved in pastoral duties at Santa Maria Maggiore, the oldest Church in the western world dedicated to Our Lady.
He said he had “such beautiful encounters” with Pope Francis since he moved to Rome in 2017.
“The relationship and the friendship started building,” he said.
When his father, Denis, was gravely ill in late 2022, Pope Francis granted him permission to return home. Just two weeks later, his father died at their home in Cloughbane, Downings.
“He said our family was blessed to be able to care for dad,” Monsignor McLaughlin recalled. “He said there were plenty who are sick and dying and had no-one to take care of them. When I got back home to Downings, it was dad’s last lucid day with us.”
Some months later, Monsignor McLaughlin took his mother, Mary, and older brother Denis to Rome and they met Pope Francis.
It was during this meeting that the Pope informed Monsignor McLaughlin that he was to be appointed as a Canon of Santa Maria Maggiore. At first, the Donegal-born cleric didn’t believe him, but a telephone call the next morning confirmed the news.
He was one of seven new Canons appointed last year alongside Monsignor Josè Jaime Brosel Gavilá, Monsignor Giuseppe Banfi, Monsignor Michael Kahle, Monsignor Antonio Manuel Machado De Saldanha e Albuquerque, Monsignor Ivan Ricupero and Monsignor Massimo Muccillo.
“It’s not the kind of appointment a young fella from Donegal expects,” he said. “A man from Downings, who would imagine the Pope would be familiar with him?”
Monsignor McLaughlin noted the personal touch of Pope Francis, who prayed with his mother and who “spoke to everybody personally.” During his father’s illness, the Pope asked about him every day.
Now, Monsignor McLaughlin - who lives upstairs in the basilica - has vowed to pray at the tomb of the late Pope each morning before the doors open to the public.
A former classmate of Creeslough curate Fr John Joe Duffy, Monsignor McLaughlin met the Pope in the days after the 2022 explosion that killed ten people in Creeslough and it was through his connection that the Pope conveyed his thoughts with the bereaved community, sending a pair of blessed Rosary beads to the north Donegal village.
Pope Francis passed away on Easter Monday and expressed a wish to be buried in the basilica, a place he last visited nine days before his death.
He had a particularly fondness for the ‘Salus Populi Romani’ icon of Mary in the basilica.
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Almost 100 popes are entombed in the crypt beneath St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, but in a break with recent papal traditions, the remains of Pope Francis were taken to Santa Maria Maggiore.
He is the first Pope since Pope Clement IX in 1669 to be interred there.