Pope Francis's Famous Easter Hug? The Boy's From Rhode Island

Woonsocket Catholics happy to hear Pope Francis was the church's new leader have a Rhode Island anecdote to bolster their opinions. 

The photo from Easter Sunday that became emblematic of Pope Francis's personal touch features the new pontiff holding a disabled Rhode Island boy in his arms. The young man, 8-year-old Dominic Gondreau, is from Johnston. 

As reported in the Providence Journal Tuesday, the Gondreau family is living in Rome for a few months. Paul Gondreau, Dominic's father, is a theology professor at Providence College and he's teaching in that school's study-abroad program for the semester. In Johnston, the Gondreaus attend Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church. Their children are home schooled.

"The pope was not only embracing Dominic, he was embracing every child, every person with disabilities," Paul Gondreau said from Rome in a phone interview Tuesday. 

It almost didn't happen.

Although the Gondreaus had gotten tickets ahead of time – tickets are free but they are required – by the time they arrived at St. Peter's Square Sunday morning, it looked like there were no seats left. The family – the Gondreaus have five children – decided to give it a try anyway. 

Dominic, who has limited mobility, was in a wheelchair. The Swiss Guard, seeing that, let him and his mother – Christiana – into a section specifically for people with disabilities.

After the Mass, Pope Francis toured the square in his Popemobile and an usher thought perhaps the pope would stop for Dominic, Paul said. When the Popemobile passed them by, the usher apologized for raising their hopes. But then, the Popemobile began to make its way back through the crowd toward the area where Dominic and Christiana were sitting. 

"Then, of course, the whole world knows what happened next," Paul Gondreau said. The Popemobile stopped and Dominic was handed up to the pope, who took him in his arms and kissed him. 

"My 12-year-old son said, 'It’s Dominic!'" Paul recalled. He hadn't been watching the large television screens so when he heard that, he said, he thought his wife and son were just making their way toward them through the crowd. Then his son said it again.

"'The pope is holding Dominic!' I was moved to tears on the spot," said Paul.

Gondreau said he was aware the pope had a special affinity for people with disabilties, but "in a crowd of a quarter million, you don’t really have a realistic expectation that the pope will pick him up like he did."

He said Dominic was happy and excited by the whole event. "He communicates a lot through his eyes." Photographs of the moment show the boy reaching his arm up to return the pope's embrace. "This wonderful smile breaks out on his face," Gondreau said of that moment.

"Dominic is a people person but I think he understood that moment was exceptionally special," Christiana Gondreau told Wolf Blitzer on CNN Tuesday. 

"Dominic has touched so many people," said Paul Gondreau. "These children with their limitations, they have such power, they move people. God has chosen this to be the moment to have Dominic touch the entire world."