Burgers and blessings for faithful Gary who wrote to Pope

A Galway boy wrote to the Pope and asked to meet up for a burger and chips when he travelled to Rome with a local religious group.

And amazingly, while he didn’t get to tuck in with Pope Francis, the letter did have some effect, as it saw Gary Keaveney, who has Down syndrome, and his mum Anne, from Dunmore, invited for a private encounter with the pontiff.

Anne said: “Myself and Gary are involved with a local Christian organisation called Faith And Light, and when we organised a trip to the Vatican, he told me he was going to write to Pope Francis, tell him we were coming, and invite him out for a meal.

“I asked him what kind of meal and he said ‘burger and chips’, and fair play, he wrote the letter and sent it off. He also said in it that he’d like to have his picture taken with him so he could show his friends. I thought no more about it until the local priest, Fr Cunnane, arrived up to the house to show us a note he had received from the Papal Nuncio acknowledging Gary’s letter and saying the Pope was looking forward to seeing him.

“Even at that, I just thought we would be a part of the general papal audience — be one of the thousands that goes to every Mass said by the pope.

“However, when myself, Gary, and his sister Shauna and his grandmother Nancy arrived at the venue the priest went up, showed some documentation to a guy standing at a side door, and all of a sudden we were beckoned through.”

Anne says she still didn’t realise what was going on — she “assumed we were being brought somewhere that might give us a better view of the whole proceedings”.

“We were escorted up on this raised stage area and sat there for a few minutes, kind of wondering what was going on,” she said. “The next thing, this door opened to the right of us and the pope walked through and came straight over and spent some moments talking to Gary and then to the rest of us. It was fantastic, absolutely brilliant, and the pope has a real aura about him. You just knew you were in the presence of somebody special.

“One of the priests let it slip later that the letter was the spur for what happened, and although he didn’t get to have his burger and chips with him, Gary has priceless pictures to show his friends in Clonberne school, where he is in sixth class, and to remind him of an amazing occasion.”