Family of six drives 20,800 km to see Pope in US

By: 9 years ago

Pope Francis poses for a family photo with Catire Walker, left, Noel Zemboiran, second from right, and their children, from left, Cala, Dimas, Mia and Carmin during a meeting at the Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia on Sunday, Sept. 27, 2015,. The Walker family made a 13,000-mile trip over 194 days from Argentina to Philadelphia in an old Volkswagen van to attend the World Meeting of Families. L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO/POOL PHOTO VIA AP

PHILADELPHIA—Never in their wildest dream, but with Pope Francis anything is possible.

A family of six finally got to meet the Pope on Sunday after making a 20,800-kilometer (13,000-mile) trip over 194 days from Argentina to Philadelphia in an old Volkswagen van.

Francis spent time with fellow Argentinians Catire Walker, wife Noel Zemborain and their four children, talking about their visit and praying.

Zemborain told The Associated Press that Francis had told her and her husband that they were crazy to drive so far with their children. She said it was like meeting an old friend and Francis hugged the children.

“We couldn’t believe it. They called us this morning [and] we were like in shock,” she said after the Pope’s Mass on Sunday night. “It was like being with an old friend. He was so warm. He told us we were crazy. He made jokes.”

Zemborain said the children got to hug the Pope a lot. “They couldn’t leave him. Not at all protocol, not at all formal, it was like being with a friend,” she added.

Walker and Zemborain quit their jobs in food service and marketing to lead their children on the unforgettable tour of the Americas, using savings and soliciting donations to fund the trip to the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia.

Along the way, the family made 12 border crossings and stayed with dozens of host families, did lots of sightseeing and documented the trip online.

They schooled their children—Cala, 12; Dimas, 8; Mia, 5; and Carmin, 3—with the help of a distance learning program.

Before the Pope celebrated Mass that drew hundreds of thousands to downtown Philadelphia on Sunday, the family got a call at 6 a.m. that Francis wanted to meet with them at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary, where he stayed over the weekend.

Francis told the family that he had been following their trip they wrote in a Facebook post.

Zemborain, Walker and the kids plan to continue traveling until November, when they will fly home from Miami. They were going to send the van by ship, but then a relative volunteered to drive it back to Buenos Aires from Florida.

It wasn’t clear if the family had plans to drive their van all the way to Dublin for another meeting with the Pope at the next World Meeting of Families in 2018.

The World Meeting of Families is an event that happens every three years. It was started by John Paul II in 1994 and is dedicated to celebrating the Church’s role in building family. The Dublin conference will be the ninth.