A little more than a week ago— before the overwhelmingly positive reviews of the Pope’s visit were nearly hijacked by news of his brief audience with controversial Kentucky clerk Kim Davis—a Salem woman whose life ambition was to be in the presence of the Pontiff found her dream come true.
Call her Marge. That’s how most people who know her refer to Marjorie Reynolds. She had looked around her neat and well-appointed Salem home one last time to make sure she had packed everything she needed for her flight to DC for the Pope’s address to Congress and to 50,000 faithful on the Capital’s East Lawn.
Marge peeked into her purse to locate her red rosary and said she never leaves home without it.
Marge Reynolds locked the door, snuggled into the passenger seat, and with her daughter Elizabeth behind the wheel, she headed to Logan for the flight of a lifetime. When Congressman Seth Moulton’s office sent out text and voice messages to North Shore constituents informing them that he was giving away a handful of tickets to see the Pope, one-thousand people applied for the lottery. Marge’s grandson was among only 50 selected.
“So he gave me a phone call and said ‘listen to this gram.” And I listened to the phone call from Seth Mouton’s office. And then I accused him of kidding me. And he said ‘grandma that would be really cruel to tell you we have tickets and then not’.”
For 80 years—from the crib to the present day—Marge Reynolds, has attended mass at Immaculate Conception Church in Salem, a community known more for witches and witchcraft than for being one of the oldest Catholic congregations in the Northeast. When she was born, the Depression was well in motion. Millions of Americans were out of luck and out of work. More than twenty-one percent were officially unemployed. The personal impact on Reynolds’s family lasted for years. And that experience informs her adulation for the Argentinean prelate Jorge Bergoglio, now known as Pope Francis, who has prioritized concern for the world’s poor.
“I came from a family of eight children, 12 people living in a house and my father and the little bit he had he gave. We called it ‘the poor box’, and I love to see people who are trying to help themselves get help. There is a big gap and pretty soon it’s going to be the rich and the poor. There’s not going to be the middle-class”
Marge Reynolds has lived over the reigns of 7 different Popes, from Pius XI to Benedict to Francis. Francis, she said, is the standard bearer.
“For me, he’s much more humble. He, I’m told is very brilliant, very brilliant. He’s not just a theologian. He’s a doer. He puts what he says into practice.”
Just hours before leaving for DC, Marge Reynolds, had knelt in the chapel of the Immaculate Conception Church—established in 1829, but these days a far cry from its European provenance and numbers of attendees.
“The balcony’s empty. You used not to be able to get a seat when I was growing up, especially during the High Holidays. Now, there are many, many empty seats. They’re just not coming.”
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When she returned to Boston from Washington DC, Marjorie Reynolds spoke with WGBH’s Barbara Howard. You can listen to her interview here:
Hundreds used to attend mass in the main church here on any given morning, One day, 18 adults and a toddler stretched out with room to spare among the pews. Six long-time congregates, like Marjorie, have silver hair. Other worshipers are younger, and Spanish and Haitian Creole are their first languages. Marge Reynolds believes that if anyone can turn around the plummeting numbers attending church here, it is Pope Francis.
“Yes, I do. I think if he ever appeared at the gazebo down on the Salem Common and spoke to these young people, yes, I believe they would have something to grab on to.”
Father Francis Sullivan, one of the priests who presides here, agrees.
“This Sunday coming up every single Catholic could decide they’re going to church on Sunday and then we’d have a problem because they’d be standing out in the street and down and around the corner, and I think the Pope is trying to tell us ‘just walk with us for a ways’”, said Father Sullivan. “If they’re willing to listen to what he’s truly saying, I think that their hearts are moved.”
Father Sullivan rotates among Salem’s three Catholic churches. His sermon that Sunday was dedicated to Pope Francis and he sees Marjorie Reynolds, a winner of Congressman Seth Moulton’s lottery, as this church’s spiritual representative in Washington to witness the Holy See.
The Roman Catholic Church has fallen on hard times in recent years – from both the self inflicted wounds of the sex abuse scandal and a doctrine that for many Catholics seems out of step with the times. But Marjorie Reynolds says she has always kept faith throughout.
When Pope John Paul II came to Boston in 1979, Marge had wanted desperately to be there. She was not able to attend, but her son was among those huddled in the massive crowds that lined Commonwealth Avenue and the Boston Common that day.
“He was like in 8th grade and he was quite impressed. Unfortunately, we lost [later] him in an auto accident. I wish he could see this Pope. I know he would be more impressed with Pope Francis.”
Marjorie Reynolds certainly is.
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