Requiescat in Pace!
I awoke today,
Easter Monday, to very sad news. Like all Catholic priests, I had gone
through the marathon of Holy Week, with all of the various liturgies,
which are spiritually and emotionally moving, but also physically
exhausting. Easter Sunday night, after the parish masses, I relaxed,
watching the classic Cecil B. DeMille film "Ben Hur", then settled in
for a good night's sleep.
After
waking Monday morning, I dressed and prayed, fed my cats, and made my
morning coffee, then turned on the television only to be met with the
news that Pope Francis had died.
I was stunned, yet I
could see it coming. I had watched the recorded Easter Sunday Mass
from the Vatican, and the Urbi et Orbi blessing following the Vatican
Mass on Sunday, once I had celebrated Easter Masses at my two parishes.
I was struck by how tired Pope Francis looked when he came out to be
driven through the crowd in St. Peter's Square, and when he gave the
Pontifical Blessing from the loggia of the basilica.
In
seeing him, I thought of how St. John Paul II looked in the last days
of his pontificate. Both he and Francis looked so very, very tired.
Both men were beset by multiple health issues as well as old age, yet
continued to serve to the best of their abilities. The weight of the
papacy is deadly, indeed. The late Pope Benedict XVI, in his old age
and frailty decided to lay down that burden and resigned, living the
remainder of his life in praying for his successor, Pope Francis, and
for the worldwide church.
Many
news commentators have, and will comment on Pope Francis' legacy. Some
will use the political terms of "liberal" or "conservative" to try and
define him. Those terms are ill suited for use in any religion, but
especially in terms of a papacy. More traditional elements in the
church and the world have seen Pope Francis as too "progressive", and
more progressive elements will complain that he was too "traditional".
What either side fails to see is that Francis, and any pope for that
matter, cannot change the doctrine of the faith. That being said, what
Pope Francis did for the church was to remind us all that yes, doctrines
are important, but people are of paramount importance. Without
watering down any doctrine, Francis did not shrink from letting everyone
know that whatever their state in life, whatever their faults and
failures, they were beloved children of God. He was not afraid to speak
"off the cuff", from the heart, as it were. Sometimes that was
confusing for some.
Perhaps
that's why some people were so opposed to him and his methods. For
centuries the world was used to hearing strictly defined and elegantly
worded decrees from the popes. Those are important to the Catholic
faith, and necessary. But, we must remember that first and foremost,
Pope Francis was a pastor. From his days as a Jesuit scholastic, and
later as a priest, he gave himself to working with ordinary people,
especially the poor. He continued that as the Cardinal Archbishop of
Buenos Aires. He lived simply, used public transport, and even filled
in for his parish priests when they needed to take a holiday. As a
Jesuit, a member of the Society of Jesus founded by St. Ignatius of
Loyola, he had taken the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. He
continued to live these as an archbishop and a cardinal (once called the
"princes of the church"). There was nothing princely about him, even
during his papacy.
I
remember watching him come onto the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica
after his election twelve years ago. Rather than wearing the lace
rochet (a type of shortened alb, which is a liturgical garment) and the
red mozzetta (a liturgical garment signifying jurisdiction), he appeared
wearing only the white papal cassock. Unlike previous newly elected
popes who came out with a beaming smile, Francis looked a bit shy, if
not stunned. Then he did something I had never witnessed before - he
asked the crowd in St. Peter's Square, and those watching around the
world, to pray for him, and bowed his head in silence. That profoundly
moved me, seeing that humility. From day one of his papacy, he changed
how things were done at the Vatican. He paid his hotel bill at the Casa
Santa Marta in person; he chose to remain living there, rather than in
the spacious, but rather cold, institutional, Apostolic Palace. He
chose to continue wearing his black orthotic shoes rather than the
oxblood papal slippers. He made it clear to the world that the pomp and
splendor of the papacy was not dear to his heart. Hopefully those
things helped us all to ask ourselves if we could live more simply and
humbly.
He
inherited many problems that previous papacies had faced, and tried his
best to answer them; the issues of scandals in the church, the rise of
extremist religious violence, the reform of the Roman Curia (the various
Vatican organizations), inter-religious dialogue, continuing conflicts
in the world, climate change, among other issues. Did he do so
perfectly? No. No one man could; but he did his best. He chose to
reach out to the "peripheries" as he called them - to countries where
Catholics were a minority, to the poor, the homeless, the imprisoned,
the sick, the migrants, the overlooked and despised. He reminded the
Church that governance and pastoral care should be done first by
listening, and that has upset many. If nothing else, in his own person,
he reminded us all that we are imperfect persons who are loved by God,
and called to live holiness by loving one another. He did not ignore
human sin, but proclaimed that God's mercy and grace is far greater and
those can change us.
History
will evaluate his papacy with more clarity than you or I could do,
since it has the advantage of time and impersonal distance. Yet, I
think, we can all say that Pope Francis was a true pastor, a true
bridge-builder, which is what the title Pontiff means. It seems clear
to me, at least, that he did his best to mold his heart after the heart
of Christ and shared that mercy and compassion to those who needed it
most. He comforted the afflicted, and afflicted the comfortable, and
that is what Christianity should do. His twelve years as Vicar of
Christ and successor of St. Peter will has lasting effects for many
years to come.
May God reward this humble shepherd and grant him eternal life, happiness, and peace. Rest in peace, Your Holiness.
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