‘I feel like an orphan for now’: Nunavut churches hold services for Pope Francis

When Pope Francis died Monday at the age of 88, for many people the news came as a shock but not a surprise.

“I felt like Francis had come to the end of his service and that he had been slowing down for a while,” Rev. Barry Bercier, the only Roman Catholic priest in Iqaluit, said in an interview Thursday at Our Lady of Assumption Roman Catholic Church.

Following the Vatican’s announcement of the Pope’s death, in Arviat the Church of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus has held a special mass every night, said Rev. Nsbiet Ekon, adding the services will continue until the Pope’s funeral Saturday.

“People have seen him as a man who brought some fresh breath to the church,” Ekon said. “And I think the impression he made in Nunavut is still very fresh in their minds.”

Gov. Gen. Mary Simon will represent Canada at Pope Francis’s funeral Saturday at the Vatican.

In 2022, Francis made a six-day “pilgrimage of penance” to Canada including a three-hour visit to Iqaluit on July 29.

He met privately with around 100 Inuit residential school survivors inside the Nakasuk School gymnasium, listening to their stories, and spoke outside to a gathering of about a thousand people. It was part of the Pope’s apology for the Catholic Church’s role in the residential school system and its treatment of Canada’s Indigenous people.

Ekon said he would like the new pope to continue the work of Francis, who “believed in an all-inclusive church.”

Rev. Barry Bercier of Iqaluit’s Our Lady of Assumption Roman Catholic Church says there has been no special liturgy there in memory of Pope Francis, who died Monday. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)

In Pond Inlet, Catholics will also have a special liturgy remembering Pope Francis on Sunday, said Rev. Patrick Allaire, of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Saint Theresa of Child Jesus Catholic Church.

“I feel like an orphan for now,” he said.

Pond Inlet is mostly Anglican, Allaire said, and the community didn’t have a “personal” relationship with Pope Francis.

“It’s sad, but I could see no one starting to cry,” he said.

The Iqaluit Roman Catholic church hasn’t had any special masses dedicated to Pope Francis and Bercier said he is not planning one.

He’s more interested in the future of the Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church, he said, adding his congregation has started to pray for the Catholic Church’s College of Cardinals who will select the new pope.

After a pope dies, cardinals — who are the senior members of the Catholic clergy — gather in Rome to elect the new pontiff in a process called a conclave.

Popes are both spiritual and political leaders, Bercier said.

Although Pope Francis was a force for good in global politics who was “drawn toward the care of the poor,” he has also been a “source of confusion,” Bercier said.

“Maybe it’s time for a shift in leadership,” he said, adding that Francis often spoke with “spontaneity.”

Bercier said he’s happy that he is not part of the conclave.

“I’m really glad that I’m not like a bishop or somebody. Being just a priest is hard enough,” he said.