Pope Francis’ passing hit home for one artist from Westport.

Larry Hoy designed the crucifix for the pope’s historic visit to the United States in 2015 – one of three papal creations he has designed.

For Hoy, crafting designs for pontiffs is nothing new. He produced papal stages for John Paul’s 1995 visit to New York’s Central Park and Benedict’s visit to ground zero in 2008.

Ten years ago, Pope Francis came calling.

The church asked Hoy to create a massive gold-covered crucifix for Francis’ historic visit to Philadelphia – a Mass viewed around the world.

“Were there a million people there?” Hoy said. “There were a lot of people.”

But the cross almost didn’t make it pass security. It was stashed in the back of a black SUV that he drove down from Connecticut.

“I didn’t have any documentation saying – you know, transmittal slip – saying I’m bringing this,” Hoy remembered with a laugh. “We just pulled up and I’d said to her, ‘We’ve got Jesus in the back!’ And she looked at me and said, ‘Come on in.’”

News 12 Connecticut was there ten years ago as Hoy painstakingly designed the crucifix in his studio.

“You have to have to patience of Job,” he told us in 2015.

Just finishing it on time was a miracle.

“He called up and said, ‘Can you make this? You have two weeks,” Hoy said on Monday. “There were a lot of things I had to, kind of, invent to give the right sculptural look. Because this is being seen not from where you’d see it in a church. This is being seen from the far end of Benjamin Franklin Parkway for the masses.”

Hoy never actually met Pope Francis, but his passing hit the artist hard.

“It hit me this morning when I read the news. It was pretty, you know, pretty close to home,” he said. “It’s the kind of person that we need now particularly, I think, in the world.”

By the way, the gold-covered crucifix that Hoy made for Pope Francis is still on display at a church in Levittown, Pa.