By Bill Forry
Managing Editor

Monsignor William Francis, who ministered with equal compassion to the poor of South America and the people of Uphams Corner in a remarkable 45-year career in the priesthood, died in his sleep on Sunday night. Francis, 73, passed away at South Boston's Marian Manor, just blocks from where his life's journey began in the Mary Ellen McCormack housing development.

On Sunday, he began his final day by celebrating morning Mass before attending a favorite event, South Boston's St. Patrick's Parade and enjoying a holiday meal of corned beef and cabbage. Friends who saw him throughout the day marveled at his high energy. Boston Police commissioner Kathleen O'Toole, who visited Francis on Sunday morning, said she hadn't seen him in such good form in months. She joined Francis in singing their own rendition of the Irish song "The Wild Rover" as they watched the annual St. Patrick's breakfast on television.

"He looked good, his spirits were high and it was the best I'd seen him a long, long time," said O'Toole. "When I got the call (the next morning) that he was gone, I was sad, but I smiled to myself. He was very much at peace with himself."

And while there was a bit of divine symmetry in his final hours spent on the slopes of Dorchester Heights, Francis's cherished home of the last three decades was on another hill about one mile away. There, from his rectory and church on Hartford Street, Francis administered Dorchester's Holy Family Parish, known as Saint Paul's until a 1995 merger with nearby Saint Kevin's.

Francis was a powerful presence in his prime years at Holy Family. After morning Mass, Francis invariably positioned himself near the church's exit doors, where a long line of parishioners would wait to greet him, ask for assistance or prayers, or - not infrequently among his younger flock- to be upbraided for a bad report card or a scrape with the nuns at St. Kevin School. Most often, his conversations were punctuated with a raucous belly laugh that was his trademark.

"If you were having a tough time, you couldn't have a better person in your corner," says longtime friend and parishioner Rep. Marie St. Fleur. "It's a tough job, because you become everything to a whole lot of people: You're a friend, you become a father, you become a probation officer, you become their everything."

As the nephew of one of the most powerful and storied clergymen in Boston's history, Cardinal Richard Cushing, Francis was a peer and advisor to some of the city's political and business elite. But, in reality, Francis's flock at Holy Family, for most of his tenure, included some of the city's most vulnerable, most of them new immigrants from Latin America, Cape Verde, and the Caribbean.

In a 1998 interview, Francis discussed his arrival at the Dorchester parish in 1974:

"It was kind of a depressing place," Francis said."They were burning everything down. I lived in an old, old house next door with about 18 rooms, alone, with an elderly housekeeper, Marie Coleman, who's a saint.

"But, I jumped at the chance to come here. I wanted something in the city and I was young."

"This area has changed now," Francis said in 1998. "There are more people living here now and owning their own houses."

"It's beginning to happen," he said. "They're going to be some great leaders from this community."

Francis's formative years as a priest came as a member of the St. James Society, a missionary group founded by his uncle in 1958. The society sent American priests to South America to work with the poorest of the poor and offered Francis an opportunity to fully explore his role as a minister. Although he had to pursue his uncle aggressively for the go ahead (Cushing was anxious to avoid claims of nepotism), Fr. Francis was sent to Peru in 1961. Fr. Francis worked the mountains of Limatambo, Peru for ten years.

"I was like a lost soul," he later remembered. "But you use lay people to interpret for you. You were doing things that you felt you were ordained to do."

When he returned to Boston and took charge at Holy Family- then known as St. Paul's parish- he found the parish and the city in chaos. At the height of the busing crisis, he rode schoolbuses into his old neighborhood with African-American children on their route to South Boston High School. In the parish, Francis bucked the stereotype of the intolerant Southie Irishman as he helped forge real relationships between the diverse cultures at St. Paul's.

"The whole area has changed. Uphams Corner has changed. It's no longer the Irish Catholic stronghold in Dorchester. And we had to accept that change- and we didn't. As a church we didn't. We lost some people in that change. To cross Columbia Road sometimes, it's like crossing the Atlantic Ocean."

As Fr. Francis slowly built St. Paul's into a stronger, more unified community, he also continued his service in other ways. In 1978, he was selected to be one of two chaplains to the Boston Police Department, a role which he formally continued until last year.

Paul Bankowski, a retired Boston Police superintendent and former commander at Dorchester's Area C-11, recalled that Francis could often be seen in court, defending either a parishioner or a police officer.

"The funny thing about Fr. Francis is you never know which side he's going to be on," Bankowski said in 1998. "But, he's a strong believer in right and wrong. He's a very genuine human being. If you're right, he'll be there."

"Not only do his parishioners admire him, but so do the police officers."

O'Toole says that the city's police department would be "devastated" by news of his passing.

"He was supportive to three generations of police officers and was loved by all, young and old," O'Toole said. "And not just Catholic officers. He was there for anyone in need, regardless of their religion."

Francis will also be remembered for his work with homeless people in the city. According to Sr. Margaret Leonard, a longtime friend and parishioner, Francis oversaw the creation of a homeless shelter and food pantry in the basement of Holy Family, which continues to serve as an annex of the Pine Street Inn.

"I remember how he went to the people in the parish to share the little we had with people who needed it," says Leonard. "The wonderful thing about it (was that) everybody in parish was behind it and it said a lot about his leadership. He had such a love for the poor and such a compassionate heart. It just opened up and he'd do everything he could."

According to St. Fleur, who along with fellow Holy Family alumnae and State Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry, was at Francis's bedside just hours before his death on Sunday, that heart was at peace in his final hours.

"We had just had a wonderful St. Paddy's day," St. Fleur said. "He's been my friend since I was 14 years old and I couldn't have had a better one."

News Editor Brian Denitzio contributed to this report.