Local deacon to share altar with Pope Francis

When Risen Christ Parish Deacon Floyd McCubbins was asked if he wanted to assist while Pope Francis says Mass in Philadelphia later this month, one might say he consulted a higher power: He asked his wife.

“We run everything by each other,” McCubbins said.

His wife, Connie, said she couldn’t believe her husband told the bishop, “Let me talk to Connie first.”

“I told Floyd, ‘This is a no-brainer.’ Of course you should do it,” she said with a broad smile.

McCubbins, a permanent deacon at Risen Christ Parish in Evergreen since June, said he will assist Bishop George Leo Thomas of Helena during the Papal Mass Sept. 27, but recently learned he may be helping out in other ways during the service that will be attended by nearly 500,000 people.

Pope Francis is traveling to the United States for the World Meeting of Families 2015 in Philadelphia, an event that is expected to draw a crowd of about 1 million people.

The McCubbinses’ trip to see Pope Francis started months ago with a simple conversation.

“I heard the pope was coming, so I asked Floyd, ‘What do you think about going to see him?’” Connie recalled. It seemed like the perfect way to celebrate her husband’s 65th birthday on Sept. 28.

She contacted her brother, John Hundahl, and his wife, Arlene Grob Hundahl, also Flathead Valley natives like the McCubbinses, and they immediately jumped at the chance to see the pope.

There have been a lot of preparations to make the trip a reality.

For starters, McCubbins had to order special accessories for his vestment, such as a white amice (a liturgical cloth that drapes around the neck) and a white cincture (a sash that goes around the waist).

The two couples luckily got rail tickets to the event site through a lottery offered by the transit system. Only 384,000 passes were offered. And even with rail transportation into Philadelphia, they’ve been advised to be prepared to walk up to five miles to get to where they need to be.

They were unaware when the free tickets were given out online. Ten thousand tickets for Saturday’s Festival of Families were gone in two minutes, McCubbins said; 30,000 tickets for Sunday’s Papal Mass were snatched up in five minutes.

Without tickets to get to the front of the crowd, Connie and her brother and sister-in-law may be “part of the masses” of spectators, though McCubbins said he has asked organizers to see if they can get better viewing.

He has completed a background check and has been advised the U.S. Secret Service is handling security details. Security will be tight, he said.

McCubbins said he respects Pope Francis’ dedication to the poor.

“He’s humble,” he said. “I fell in love with him when I heard about his background” of ministering to those in need.

McCubbins was raised in the Baptist faith and converted to Catholicism in 1986. Many years later he thought about becoming a deacon of the Catholic Church. He has been a permanent deacon for three years, serving St. Richard’s Catholic Church in Columbia Falls before transferring to Risen Christ.

“My job is to serve, not to be a glory hound,” he said. “A deacon is the eyes and ears of the bishop, they serve along with the priests.”

McCubbins has been involved in jail and hospital ministries in addition to helping the homeless.

“It’s a calling,” he said. “It’s something I’ve always done anyway. It’s not about me; it’s about the words of Christ, to comfort the prisoner, the poor. That’s always been my view on the world.”

A 1968 graduate of Flathead High School, McCubbins spent a decade with the U.S. Forest Service as a survey and design engineer, then worked for F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Co. for close to 20 years.

He and Connie, now a marketing consultant for the Daily Inter Lake, ran a health club and travel agency in Columbia Falls for several years. Community service has been a big part of both of their lives.

In a 2012 interview with the Hungry Horse News when he was ordained as a deacon, McCubbins shared the church’s philosophy on marriage, which explains why he asked his wife before committing to being a part of history during the papal visit to the City of Brotherly Love.

“The church believes that by keeping a wife involved, their marriage grows stronger,” he said. “If a wife disagrees, then it’s all over. We actually function as a team in our ministry. I would be lost without her.”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.