Rick Santorum on Monday morning told Newsmax of the kindness Pope Francis showed the former Pennsylvania Republican senator's daughter during a trip to Philadelphia nearly a decade ago.
Francis, the second oldest Pope in Vatican history, died Monday, the Vatican confirmed. He was 88.
Santorum told "Wake Up America's" Sharla McBride a story of his wife and daughter interacting with the pope during the pontiff's visit to the City of Brotherly Love in September 2015.
"I had my own experience with Pope Francis," Santorum said. "He was in Philadelphia in 2015, I believe, for the World Meeting of Families. And my wife had an opportunity to be in a receiving line and she was with my daughter Bella, who, you know, is disabled, profoundly disabled with Trisomy 18."
Santorum said the pope approached his wife and asked to hold Bella.
"She was 7 years old at the time, so she wasn't little, but he held her and, and blessed her," Santorum said. "And it was just a remarkable moment and just again showed the humanity of the man... his love for, again, those on the margins of society."
Santorum added that he viewed the experience through photos, because only two tickets were available to meet Francis.
"I gave the ticket to my wife and my daughter, so I didn't go," he said. "Karen had that moment and she sent, she sent pictures of it to us."
The former senator admitted that Francis' kindness shown to Bella adds to a complicated overall feeling about the pope.
"I stand here as someone who, you know, who struggles with a lot of what the pope did and as the pontiff," he said. "[But] I was overwhelmed with just how he spent time with her [Bella]. He didn't just, you know, give her a quick blessing and move on. You know, he wanted to hold her. He wanted to talk to my wife and hear from her about, you know, the, the beauty of having a child who's, who's profoundly disabled and the gift of life, irrespective of what, what that life is, is just a beautiful thing.
"And again, it leaves a very special place in my heart for him, for his, you know, not just for what he did for my family and the blessing he gave us, but it just shows his embrace of the culture of life and the dignity of every human life."
Santorum said Francis "led with his heart" after following two popes who "really led with their minds more."
"John Paul II, who was just a transitional figure in the church, obviously, now Saint John Paul II, with his with his, you know, just masterful combination of both heart and mind and... bringing theology to the to the common people with this theology of the body and so many other tremendous gifts that he left the church," Santorum said.
"And Benedict, who was behind a lot of those things from John Paul II as a close adviser to him... Pope Francis took things in a different direction."
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