A Pope for our time
On the morning of April 21, the world was surprised by the news of Pope Francis’ death. The world was orphaned, not only because « Papa » means « Father », but because believers and non-believers recognized in Pope Francis a moral and spiritual fatherhood that our world, marked by wars, violence and hatred, needs so much.
The pontificate of Pope Francis was always marked by surprises… a Pope « from the end of the world, » as he said. A name never adopted by a Pope. A way of presenting itself differently. However, we can only be external aspects and lose all the depth of the Pope’s thought, action and word. I would like to remember that more than looking at the pontificate as something from the past, we have to recognize how we are responsible for continuing it today.
Over the course of more than a decade, we have seen a deeply human spiritual leadership, centered on the essentials: The Gospel of Jesus Christ and the dignity of each person. We can say that his leadership is of heart and conscience, that is, he used the language that reaches all: believers and not believers, poor and powerful, young and elderly.
Firstly, Francis brought the church closer to the people in a totally new way. Speaking simply and directly, with concrete gestures, he rescued the beauty of the faith lived in everyday life. His insistence on mercy was not only theological: it was pastoral, existential. He wants a « output » church, which does not expect sitting in the temples or closed in the sacristy, but meets the poor, the forgotten, the wounded of life. There is room for everyone in the church. Under his leadership, Catholicism spoke to the heart. We rediscover the joy of the gospel, holiness in everyday life, prayer as a meeting with a God who does not condemn but embraces.
Secondly, Francis never wanted to be politician in the worldly sense. But it is undoubtedly one of the most relevant political voices of our time. Not by ambition, but for evangelical coherence. When it speaks of the migrants, the homeless, the victims of war or exclusion, it does so as one sees in each of them the face of Christ. Therefore, it has often remembered a truth so affirmed in Catholic thinking: politics is one of the noblest forms of charity. In particular, peace was an unavoidable theme in the Pope’s thought and, as we read his will, we realized that it was unavoidable in his heart as well: « The suffering that was present in the last part of my life I offer him to the Lord for peace in the world and the fraternity among the peoples, » he wrote in the document of June 29, 2022 and now published. May the return to the home of Pope Francis’ father be the opportunity to open ways of deep and lasting peace in all geographies in which war and violence continue to expect human dignity.
Third, at a time when climate change, the destruction of ecosystems and the culture of disposal threatens the future of the planet, Francis launched an appeal to collective consciousness with the encyclical Laudato Si ‘. There, it defends a ‘integral ecology’ that unites the care of the earth with the care of people, especially the most vulnerable. « Everything is interconnected, » repeats the Pope several times, to show that it is the origin of everything in God, Creator and Redeemer, which founds the new ways that must be traveled. The Pope teaches us that the ecological crisis is also a spiritual and ethical crisis. It invites us to change lifestyles, consumer habits and to reunite with the sense of belonging to a common house. In this sense, it is essential to warn that the deepest meaning of the Pope’s statements has often been lost. Ecology for Francis is not an ideology, but a commitment to God.
In short, the Pope had the ability to lead us to the authenticity of the Gospel: in the simplicity of his gestures, the strong images he used, and in prophetic gestures, in everything imitated Christ, who lived poorly, who used parables to teach the disciples and who did not have to undertake gestures that were disruptive. Francis knew, in the way of Jesus, to be a prophet today, especially being announced of a life proposal that valued from union with Christ. The human being, every man and every woman, is not only recipient of a message to be conveyed, but each is called to redemption, to receive a new life, a new way.
Its legacy goes beyond borders and ideologies. He will be remembered as the Pope who, at a time of noise and tiredness, pointed out ways of hope. Finally, Pope Francis went and is the man for this time, returning the soul to the world.
Patriarch of Lisbon
