The death of Pope Francis on Monday means the Roman Catholic Church will soon begin the process of selecting a new pontiff.
That ancient and mysterious undertaking known as the "conclave" invariably draws speculation over who will be chosen to lead the church and its 1.4 billion adherents worldwide, NPR reports.
The body of Pope Francis was moved Thursday morning to lie in state at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
On Monday in Springfield, Mass., outside of St. Michael's Church on State Street, Mary Ann Arnold called Pope Francis a remarkable man.
"I think he really was in tune with the Gospel," Arnold said. "I think he's going to be a hard act to follow, but we just have to pray for the church that the cardinals use a lot of discernment and come up with the right guy to fill his shoes."
Arnold had attended the regular Monday 12:10 p.m. Mass.
"I think [the pope's] whole attitude stirred a spirit of reaching out to people in our church," Arnold said adding, " he was very much a hands on person. He touched the marginalized. He reached out to people who felt 'Catholics don't want anything to do with me.'"
Arnold said while the pope was far away in Italy, he had a universality everyone could appreciate.
"There's something intrinsically close about it, in that we're all in it together, and he included himself in that," Arnold said. "He talked about going to confession. He talked about his failings like everybody else does."
Another longtime St. Michael's parishioner is Roseanne Caracciolo, a principal in the Holyoke Public Schools.
"When I look at at this pope, he was a real human being from beginning to end... and that's what we all inspire to be, pope or not."
Caracciolo said she is from a large Irish Catholic family.
"There's eight of us, seven girls and just one boy," she said, adding that her brother is a priest.
There's an old joke among the seven sisters about wanting to play flashlight tag in the Vatican, Caracciolo said.
"I truly believe that this pope would have let us," she said.
The funeral service for Pope Francis will be held Saturday morning in St. Peter's Square.