Getting the chance to see Pope Francis in person involves a process part like getting free tickets for a television program and part like onstage access at a concert.

Southwestern Michigan College part-time instructor Carlotta Ripley experienced the process recently during an eight-day spiritual pilgrimage with a 28-member delegation from St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Church in Niles.

“It was like a rock concert. People thronged to the front,” she said. “We had perfect weather in the ‘60s and ‘70s. We came back to rain and cold.”

As the reigning pope of the Catholic Church, the 77-year-old pontiff is both Bishop of Rome and Absolute Sovereign of the Vatican City State.

He holds a weekly Wednesday audience for 30,000 people in St. Peter’s square in Vatican City, a walled enclave within Rome, Italy’s capital.

“They pass out free tickets you have to have to get in. You have to get there early, but it’s nice. No standing. They have chairs set up in rows,” said Ripley, who has taught SMC math courses for six years.

She and her husband, John, retired to southwest Michigan from Chicago, where she taught for 26 years.

St. Mary’s trip was organized by Father Robert F. Prevost, O.S.A., whom Pope Francis announced Nov. 3 as the next Bishop of the Diocese of Chiclayo, Peru.

Fr. Prevost, 59, was born in Chicago. Ordained into the priesthood June 19, 1982, he previously served two terms (2001-2007 and 2007-2013) as Prior General of the Order of St. Augustine. The Augustinians arrived in Chicago in 1905.

Midwestern Augustinians began missions to northern Peru in 1963.

“He was in Peru before he was in Rome,” she said of Fr. Prevost, who drove in from Hyde Park, Ill., to assist with masses when St. Mary’s pastor battled health issues before retiring. Current priest the Rev. Alphonse Savarimuthu, is from India.

“When St. Mary’s Deacon Roger Gregorski found out that Fr. Bob was in Rome for 12 years,” she said, “Roger though that Fr. Bob would be the perfect person to take a group to Rome.”

Fr. Prevost “was able to get us 12 tickets for the higher stage the Pope is on in St. Peter’s Square,” Ripley said. “There are big screens so people can see. Our tour guide told us when we went in, because it’s a mad rush, to go to the corners, where the Popemobile goes by twice.

“You go through security like an airport to check bags and sit there for a couple of hours. We were sitting there when we were told about 12 tickets provided by the Augustinians for people to go up top where the Pope is. John and I got two of those tickets,” putting them within 50 feet, although ironically, “When you’re on the same level, you can’t see him as well. I think people in the general audience had a better view.”

Names of groups there are called out in several languages.

“We were supposed to cheer when our church was mentioned,” she said. “The Pope gave his message in Italian, then they gave a summary translation.”

Besides Rome, their group visited Assisi, birthplace of St. Francis, founder of the Franciscan religious order; Cascia, for the shrine to Saint Rita, the Italian Augustinian nun; and Florence, where the sculptor, painter, architect and poet Michelangelo, who exerted considerable influence on the development of Western art, is buried at the Basilica of Santa Croce, as are Niccolo Machiavelli and Galileo Galalei.

“We got to see (Michelangelo’s) tomb, then we got to see his work in the Sistine Chapel” in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope, though he lives elsewhere. “We saw the Roman Colosseum catacombs.”

Ripley was struck by the amount of graffiti compared to Chicago or New York City.

“It’s not gangs, but as soon as they clean it off it comes back,” she said. “It’s not on the Colosseum, St. Peter’s Basilica, or even churches, but apartment buildings, stores and everything else seem fair game.”

Ripley had an opportunity to see Pope John Paul II celebrate an open-air mass in Grant Park on Oct. 5, 1979, “but I decided not to because I’m not good with crowds.”

That was the first time any Pope visited Chicago.

The Tribune reported of the largest gathering in city history, “The skyscrapers of Chicago’s Loop resembled cathedral spires as they soared over the crowd” the newspaper estimated at 200,000 people.

Ripleys toured Italy a couple of years ago, including the northeastern town where Carla’s grandmother was born.

“I was able to get a copy of her birth record,” she said.

Chicago congestion convinced the Ripleys to retire to a more rural setting with woods and water.

Niles won a two-year search which took the couple as far the other way as Door County, Wis.

Their daughter and grandchildren still live in Chicago.

John, a Purdue University graduate, retired from marketing and public relations.

Both are active with the League of Women Voters of Berrien and Cass Counties.