‘I’ll owe him that forever’: Winnipeg musician salutes late pope

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This article was published 24/04/2025 (198 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If it wasn’t for Pope Francis, Onna Lou might have never had a music career.

The singer-songwriter, who moved to Winnipeg from Argentina in 2016, is set to release her third album of Latin pop-rock mixed with Argentine folk next month. Her music has allowed her to tour Canada.

But that might not have been the case if she hadn’t crossed paths with Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who would later become Pope Francis, head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Lou studied classical music composition at a university in Buenos Aires. She was struggling to get by and working non-stop whenever she wasn’t in class. Her mother reached out to the then-cardinal, asking for help.

Shortly thereafter, Lou received a letter from the cardinal, who was also from Argentina, that included a scholarship for her final two years of school.

“I was so burnt out. After I got the scholarship, I could start working a normal amount of hours,” Lou said. “I’ll owe him that forever. It was a huge difference in my personal life.”

Pope Francis died Monday at age 88. His funeral will be held in the Vatican on Saturday.

Lou called him a caring man who was always trying to help the less fortunate.

“He was very simple — the ultimate approachable person ever,” she said of Francis.

His humbleness was on display, as shown by how he signed her scholarship note.

“His signature was tiny, and I remember talking about it with my parents and saying that he’s such a humble person,” she said. “That was the first very good turn my life took.”

Lou said Bergoglio lived in a small house near a cathedral and would answer the phone himself and talk to anyone, including her mom. She added the papacy didn’t change him, and he was always as nice as he was in Argentina.

“It’s so massive what he did … he was an amazing human being, and he did his best for sure,” Lou said. “If it would have been up to him (and not the entire church), he would have done so much more.”

She said she hopes the next pope will be similar to Francis, especially in the way he advanced women’s rights in the church and fought for more inclusion.

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