Pope Francis: Rest in Peace
*This article was originally published by RealClearReligion.
It was January 2019.
The Knights of Columbus (KofC) assigned me to report on its efforts for English-speaking pilgrims to World Youth Day in Panama City, Panama. The initiative, launched by Pope John Paul II in 1987, gathered tens of thousands of young Catholics from across the globe for communion, prayer, and celebration.
Though not my first journalistic venture (and not the last for the KofC), there were several immediate challenges: Panama was a relatively unknown country, in terms of my historical knowledge, aside from the canal and the U.S. intervention of the late 1980s; and, to complicate matters, my Spanish was minimal at best — since I swapped for Latin in high school — so I would be highly reliant on translators outside of the KofC’s convention center.
Moreover, the mission’s magnitude did not escape me: World Youth Day was a global event. Prior to this assignment, I covered primarily local KofC councils providing charitable goods and services in hurricane-stricken areas. And more significantly, Pope Francis would be there.
Though I had press credentials with access to different vantage points, I hardly expected to be within a 100 yards from the Holy Father. Nevertheless, my compatriots and I tried to do just that in the event’s opening ceremony. After miles and hours of weaving through a throng on the Pan-American Highway from our hotel, despondency (and the heat) nearly overwhelmed us — yet we pressed onward. Suddenly, as we approached the main stage, the crowd dispersed, and within mere seconds, there he was, Pope Francis, riding in the Popemobile, nearly 10 feet from me.
Naturally, I grabbed my phone and recorded his arrival (after all, I had to post on the KofC’s social media channels) and captured a Webelo gifting him a bandana. Thankfully, though I did photograph this moment, I did not watch the interaction through the electronic prism. Witnessing the palpable joy with my own eyes between both the Holy Father and pilgrim was infectious. Overall, the opening ceremony was a little sliver of heaven — countless souls united in purpose to praise God, saying ‘yes’ to His wonder, mercy, and love.
With news of Pope Francis’ death following the Easter triduum (which, itself, seems poetic), that is what I remember: his bright smile toward the young man yearning for a brief encounter with Christ’s vicar on earth.
Certainly, the Holy Father leaves behind a complicated legacy, especially among conservative American Catholics. (Here is an account by Father Robert Sirico, president emeritus at Acton Institute). Even yours truly questioned his actions at times.
But he was the ‘father’ of the universal Church. And as Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, has stated since the pope’s passing, there has been a “death in the family.” It’s a true sentiment. I was a 20-year-old sophomore at the University of Connecticut watching his election as pontiff in 2013. Today, I’m 32 with more gray hairs appearing daily. He had been pope for my adult life, which, no doubt, are formative years for any young person. The news of his death is profound, causing me to reflect on my own spiritual journey, especially since World Youth Day 2019.
Indeed, his preaching on the Christian striving to live a joyous life, the Church being a “field hospital,” and his hauntingly beautiful ‘Urbi et Orbi’ prayer during early COVID have resonated with me, shaping my outlook on my daily life. But if there was one moment that encapsulates the best of his pontificate, it came in 2018. A distressed young boy, whose father had passed away, asked Pope Francis if he was in heaven. The boy had reason to doubt: his father was an atheist — though he had his four children baptized. Tenderly, the Holy Father told the crowd, as reported by Catholic News Service:
“God has a dad’s heart. And with a dad who was not a believer, who baptized his children and gave them that bravura, do you think God would be able to leave him far from himself? Does God abandon his children? Does God abandon his children when they are good?”
The children shouted, “No.”
“There, Emanuele, that is the answer,” the pope told the boy. “God surely was proud of your father, because it is easier as a believer to baptize your children than to baptize them when you are not a believer. Surely this pleased God very much.”
This brief moment exemplified Matthew’s Gospel, when Christ teaches: “Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” Truly, this moment brings me to tears every time I watch it because it conveys the depths of God’s love. (This theme, how God does not leave us orphaned, I incorporated throughout my novella, The Condemned.)
Again, Pope Francis’ reign had its (sometimes major) flaws — and time will tell about his legacy; but his death during the Easter season, the most sacred time of year for a Christian, offers a chance for all the faithful to orient ourselves to this truth, of which the Holy Father eloquently preached this past Easter Sunday:
“Love has triumphed over hatred, light over darkness and truth over falsehood. Forgiveness has triumphed over revenge. Evil has not disappeared from history; it will remain until the end, but it no longer has the upper hand; it no longer has power over those who accept the grace of this day. …In the Lord’s Paschal Mystery, death and life contended in a stupendous struggle, but the Lord now lives forever. He fills us with the certainty that we too are called to share in the life that knows no end, when the clash of arms and the rumble of death will be heard no more. Let us entrust ourselves to him, for he alone can make all things new.”
Jesus Christ lives. Life burst forth from the tomb on that Easter Sunday two-thousand years ago. And he, the first-born from death, offers mercy, not condemnation; love, not destruction; friendship, not slavery; peace, not strife. At the end of his life, that is the ‘good news’ Pope Francis expressed and one he tried to share throughout his earthly pilgrimage.
Saint Francis of Assisi, who inspired the pope’s name and ethos, is credited with praying that “in dying we are born to eternal life.” Through God’s grace, may Pope Francis now be born into that eternal life as a child of the Eternal Father. And may He, the author of everything, watch over the Church and guide the conclave in the coming months in the selection of the next holy father.
May Pope Francis rest in peace.