by Blake Nelson, Alexandra Mendoza, 

Since the 2010s, San Diego County Catholics have been led by two men.

Pope Francis took charge of the global church in 2013. Two years later, he made Robert McElroy the head of San Diego’s diocese. And within the space of a few weeks, both are gone.

The pope died Monday, just after celebrating Easter in St. Peter’s Square and not long after moving McElroy to the nation’s capital to take over the Archdiocese of Washington.

“Today, the Church and the world have lost a true shepherd of souls,” McElroy said in a statement from his new home in Washington, D.C. “Amidst our sadness at this death, we thank God for the penetrating grace that he has brought among us.”

McElroy’s decade in San Diego — which included his ascension to the College of Cardinals, the highest-ranking body within the world’s largest Christian church — is a major part of the pope’s legacy in Southern California. San Diego had never before had a cardinal, and McElroy used his platform to support the pope’s push for a more inclusive church.

That vision was especially important to communities near the U.S.-Mexico border, noted San Diego Auxiliary Bishop Michael Pham. “He cared for the migrants and immigrants,” Pham said about the pontiff. “It’s a difficult time for all of us.”

Catholics throughout San Diego County described feeling both grief over the pope’s passing and joy about his lasting influence. Marta Flores, a 73-year-old lay leader at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, was elated to picture the pontiff’s arrival in Heaven. “He is being told, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant,’” she said, a reference the Gospel of Matthew.

Flores sees Francis’ papacy as a call to action. “He opened up the church to the marginalized,” Flores said. “How do we keep his example alive?”

Condolences poured in throughout the day. Deacon Jim Vargas, head of Father Joe’s Villages, praised the pope’s “compassion” for “our most vulnerable neighbors.” U.S. Rep. Scott Peters highlighted Francis’ focus on the harmful effects of climate change.

South of the border, more than 100 Catholic churches and parishes in Tijuana, Rosarito and Tecate plan to ring their bells in unison Monday evening in memory of the pope.

Israel Ángeles Gil, a leader in the Tijuana Archdiocese, recalled being a university student in Rome around the time that Francis’ predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, resigned. Gil was outside the Sistine Chapel when white smoke began blowing from a chimney, signaling the election of a new pontiff, although he initially struggled to hear what name had been called. Then he saw someone waving an Argentinian flag.

“That’s how we learned that he was the first Latin American pope,” Gil said. The moment filled him with hope.

Others in the area have similarly personal memories. In 2015, several students from St. John the Evangelist School in Encinitas travelled to Italy with their choir director to sing for the pope. During a rehearsal, Francis walked down an aisle, shook some of the girls’ hands and blessed them in Spanish. “It was one of the best days of my life,” 9-year-old Lily Grochowiak said at the time.

A diocesan spokesperson said a memorial service should come next week.

Francis’ death will likely delay efforts to get San Diego a new bishop.

Since Cardinal McElroy left last month for Washington, D.C., the local church’s day-to-day operations are being overseen by Pham, the auxiliary bishop who’s now serving as the diocese’s administrator. But that role has limits: Administrators can’t appoint pastors to parishes, for example, or ordain new priests.

Those decisions must be made by a bishop, and bishops are chosen by popes.

In the coming weeks, Catholic leaders from around the world will gather to elect Francis’ successor. Only cardinals less than 80 years old are eligible to vote. McElroy, however, is 71.

“The Church is hurting, crying over this event that touches it in its deepest depths,” Tijuana Archbishop Francisco Moreno Barrón said Monday during a press conference at the New Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico. “But these are not tears of despair, but tears of Christian hope.”

Moreno Barrón said he is convinced the next pontiff will be “the pope the Church needs at this moment in history.”