“The International Longshoremen’s Association mourns the passing of His Holiness, Pope Francis, who died on Easter Monday 2025 at the age of 88. Pope Francis was the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, and a champion and advocate of working men and women around the world.
It was an honor and a personal blessing for me to send an ILA delegation, including my sons Dennis and John Daggett, to Rome last year to meet with The Holy Father, as part of a delegation of global dockworker union leaders who met with the Holy Father. “He was a passionate advocate for organized labor and stood firmly with working people – especially dockworkers and our global movement,” wrote Dennis Daggett, our ILA Executive Vice President, about Pope Francis.
Throughout his 12-year Papacy, Pope Francis truly served as “the workingman’s Pope.” and who famously said: “There is no union without workers, and there are no free workers with a union.” His Holiness added that labor “builds society” and is a “primary form of citizenship” from which the community takes its form.
I ask my family of ILA Sisters and Brothers to join with me in prayer and remembrance of this remarkable Servant of Our Lord and honor his memory by the Holy Father’s example of living the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage and universal love.”