BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Pope Francis' beloved soccer club in his native Buenos Aires, San Lorenzo, celebrated a Mass late Wednesday dedicated to its most famous fan two days after his death, with Argentina still awash in emotional tributes to the first Latin American pontiff.
Dozens of San Lorenzo club members sporting club jerseys and clutching rosaries gathered to bid farewell to Pope Francis at the team chapel in the Argentine capital’s middle-class Almagro district — the same wood-roofed church where another Catholic priest founded the club over a century ago and where Jorge Mario Bergoglio said Mass years before becoming Pope Francis.
Bergoglio attended San Lorenzo matches as a child with his Italian immigrant father and remained an unabashed fan throughout his life, paying monthly club membership fees until his death Monday at the age of 88. Bergoglio grew up in the Flores neighborhood, not far from the San Lorenzo stadium.
“We’re not saying goodbye to a fan or the club’s most important fan. Today, many of us are saying goodbye to a friend,” said Father Juan Pablo Sclippa, who presided over the memorial Mass Wednesday from an altar festooned with portraits of the pope. “Francisco was truly great, the best player on the field, the best player in the world, who never believed in himself.”
The San Lorenzo club — founded by Father Lorenzo Massa in 1908 as part of an effort to get children off the crime-ridden streets — became central to Bergoglio’s image as the “Pope of the people.”
“When I read the story of San Lorenzo, everything came together for me,” said Pablo Avalos, 52, a fan at the Mass who credits Francis with inspiring his love of the club. “San Lorenzo has a lot to do with Francis. It started with Massa’s social action that rescued children from the streets.”
Both as a charismatic cleric in his hometown and the influential leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Rome, Francis was admired for his humility, simplicity and informality.
In Buenos Aires, he commuted by bus, walked barefoot through the city's sprawling shantytowns and exchanged soccer banter with parishioners. At the Vatican, he shunned fancy velvet for a plain white cassock, caught people off-guard with wisecracks and expressed solidarity with the world’s downtrodden.
Despite his far-flung travels and frantic schedule, Francis remained attached to San Lorenzo — keeping informed of the club's ups and downs largely through the radio ever since vowing never to watch TV again in 1990.
Those searching for miracles to support Francis' sainthood point to the team's meteoric rise through the ranks shortly after Francis became pope in 2013. Months later the club became Argentine champions and, in 2014, won its first Copa Libertadores — South America’s equivalent of the Champions League.
Twice San Lorenzo players and officials hauled trophies to St. Peter’s Basilica to thank Francis for his support.
“He’s our father,” said Gaciela Iglesias, 69, a decades-long club member. “We will miss him so much."
But if Francis' papacy brought the club a streak of good luck, his death coincided with a crisis at San Lorenzo.
On Monday, footage from a hidden camera leaked to the media showing the club's president, Marcelo Moretti, stuffing his pockets with several thousand dollars that he allegedly received from a player’s mother in exchange for her son signing the team.
Facing charges of fraud, Moretti took leave from his post on Wednesday as the Argentine Football Association opened a disciplinary investigation. While some San Lorenzo fans were saying prayers for Pope Francis, others were protesting the scandal at the club headquarters nearby.
Meanwhile San Lorenzo’s superstitious fans were more interested in another coincidence. Online message boards and social media groups were flooded with speculation about how Francis’ club membership number — 88,235 — included both his age of 88 and the exact time of his death in Buenos Aires, 2:35 a.m., or 7:35 a.m. in Rome.
Débora Rey, The Associated Press
