Pope Francis’ death: tribute to a brother
Those who like to see signs everywhere can undoubtedly marvel from the moment of the death of Pope Francis. In the early morning of Easter Monday, after the big and long celebrations of the Pascal tridum in which the elderly and sick man could not participate physically, Jorge Mario Bergoglio made his last breath.
Like his patron saint, François d’Assise, the Pope wanted to show himself one last time in his weakness. For the Urbi and Orbi blessing of this Easter Sunday, even asking to make a final round of honor on the Place Saint-Pierre in contact with this people of Rome and elsewhere that they loved so much. By being seated, tired, the face seized by the effects of drugs, unable to express these emotions which characterized him, however, man stood up, reminding everyone that the pope is first of all a man. A few days ago, images of the pope in a wheelchair, discreetly crossing the Saint-Pierre basilica in civilian outfit and covered with a poncho, had circulated. As a necessary reminder for all that behind these usual clerical clothes which speak of an assumed and heavy function, there is also the reality of a human figure. That of a child of Italian immigration and popular districts of Buenos Aires. That of a priest who has continued to love people, cousins, neighbors, elders, friends he regularly called on the phone even once it became a pope. That of a bishop who faced the violence of dictatorships and the heaviness of ecclesial administrations. That of a cardinal who sharpened his reflection to be able to appoint, in a discourse which will make the date, during the preconclave of 2013, the remedies which must be applied to the sick body of the Catholic institution. That of a pope who puts an end to the frills from the Italian Renaissance, starting with the gesture of leaving the pontifical apartments to stay in contact with the inhabitants and visitors of the Saint-Marthe house.
Ironically, during one of his last diplomatic meetings, François received the very controversial and closing JD Vance, American and notorious Catholic vice-president the day before his death. The ideological positions of nationalist Catholicism which emerges under the Trump era came to shatter in this meeting of a sick but lucid and determined man. Almost an evangelical parable.
In twelve years of pontificate, this Argentinian Jesuit who has become Pope will have deeply changed the gaze of the Catholic Church on herself. First, because it is the mission that his cardinal colleagues entrusted to him by eliminating him. As for the Poverello, the time was, in 2013, to “note” an emergency a church undermined by corruption and soiled by scandals of all kinds. He did it with energy and clairvoyance, laying milestones that are so many decisive notches. Pastoral openings, prophetic gestures, attention to peripheries, simplification of pontifical imaging, decisive synodal process, appointments of a new generation of more diverse officials, clarification of sometimes heavy files: the assessment is colossal.
In this sense, man largely took up the challenge left to him by his predecessor, Benoît XVI. The German theologian, undoubtedly helpless in the face of the magnitude of the task, had the courage of his gesture of renunciation, making possible the determined work of his successor who could no longer be challenged when it was a question of deciding in the life to empty the Vatican bank of accounts which were used to whiten money from mafia environments, to end the careerism of Roman prelates – which had deprived their benefit Vatican networks; To resist all its weight to religious ideologies which constantly resurface over the centuries – nags and pelagianism in mind.
But above all, Pope Francis has decisively brought the Church into the 21st century, far from revengeful nostalgia and misguided modernisms. As a good Shepherd, he knew how to face reality, listening to a lot, visiting the powerful and the most humble, and making decisions when it was necessary while resisting the struggles of influences. Pope Francis will not be able to go to Nicée as he had dreamed with his brother and friend, the Patriarch Bartholomée, so that the 1700th anniversary of the proclamation of the text of the Credo also pushes all Christians to a salutary rapprochement. But there is no doubt that, there too, the openings he made during his lifetime will be decisive for the future.
In the coming days, the surviving media world of social networks and continuous information channels will make its fatty cabbage on this page of history that turns. It will no doubt be good, for those who loved this man, above all to be silent to collect his inheritance and remain faithful to him. And also start to read and … read your texts. The homilies given to Sainte-Marthe in particular. Messages sent to popular movements. But also his message for the Station Hall of Friday, a few days ago. As well as its last homily recited on Easter Sunday. There, the man nailed in his chair, for several years now, still spoke of the race towards the tomb of Marie-Madeleine. This momentum of the heart which is the very source of faith to meet the risen. He also mentioned that it was by looking for Jesus “elsewhere” than in a tomb, that we can meet him, without nostalgia or sterile fixation. “It is alive and always stays with us, crying the tears of those who suffer and multiplying the beauty of life in the little gestures of love of each of us.”
Pope Francis cites two theologians in this last homily, testifying to his tireless taste for reading, meeting, dialogue. It is the French theologian Henri de Lubac who recalls that “Christianity is Christ”, and nothing else. And the theologian and Italian hermit Adriana Zarri. A free, committed, disturbing woman, as Pope Francis would no doubt like the Church to be too. He resumes one of his prayers on his own: “shake us, O God, the sad dust of habit, weariness and disenchantment; Give us the joy of waking up every morning with amazed eyes to see the invisible colors of this morning, unique and different from all the others. (…) Everything is new, Lord, and nothing is repeated, nothing is old. ”
Thank you, François.
