A quick personal note on Pope Francis.
I was in St. Peter’s Square when the white smoke appeared. The rain that had been going on for days since Pope Benedict left the Vatican subsided — and the umbrellas finally got to go down as the crowd grew — by the time Pope Francis was introduced to the world.
Truth be told, at first I didn’t know who he was — other than his name. I thought he was another Argentinian, who worked for the curia. And I was disappointed.
I ran down the Via della Conciliazione to try to get a signal on my phone — the jamming devices that had been put in place for the conclave, to keep cardinals from spilling the beans during the secret process. I had media lined up for the night, and it would help to know what I was talking about.
The first buzz about the new pope, besides that he was from Latin America and that he took the name of the beloved Francis of Assisi — the latter which the Romans were loving — was, amusingly, in retrospect, a defense he had made of Pope Benedict on an issue involving sexual morality. (It’s too random to get into now.) It all seems amusing and quaint in retrospect, given all we’ve all lived through with him in the time since.
The more I learned about the former Cardinal Bergoglio, the more I loved. He was a Jesuit who had a love for St. Ignatius Loyola’s spiritual exercises — for all the jokes conservatives make about Jesuits, the exercises of their founder are their rigorous best.
That night, media friends had divided up and were translating an interview he did with a rabbi friend of his from Spanish. (Lopez was in intermediate Spanish in college, alas. It wasn’t going to do!)
This is all a long way of saying: I’ve loved the man since the beginning. He didn’t know it, but we spent some intimate time together during Covid — I would stay up or wake up at odd hours to pray morning Mass with him when I couldn’t go to Mass, I would watch him live on my laptop. Just praying with him was such a help in isolation. His sermons touched my heart and guided me. And it wasn’t the first time. In that Ignatian tradition, his morning homilies early on were challenging to me. I know many priests in the Vatican saw them as rants against their clericalism. But I heard a pastor urging us to get serious about being Christians.
As bizarre as it may sound, I felt shocked this morning when I saw that Pope Francis had died. Sure, he had spent all that time in the hospital, but we were pretending he was rallying. Even as he obviously didn’t look like he was when he met with JD Vance yesterday. Also, file this under way-too-honest: I’m totally jealous of Vance for having been with Pope Francis on Easter Sunday. For all the immigration politics and everything, that’s got to have an interior impact.
Pope Francis spent some time here in the U.S. with us. He risked his life visiting Iraq. There’s a lot to remember. I remember a man I loved and who challenged me in the best of ways.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/remembering-a-father-francis/
Comment: This is just one of the articles written by Kathryn Jean Lopez this morning about the death of Pope Francis. is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and an editor-at-large of National Review. She is the author of A YEAR WITH THE MYSTICS: VISIONARY WISDOM FOR DAILY LIVING. I was unaware of her until this morning. Her simple, personal words above mean more to me now knowing the depth of her faith.
In another article by her this morning, she said this:
If Pope Francis is going to be remembered for anything beyond our ideological takeaways, it should be for this:
*** His emphasis on mercy. That’s because most of us have something we think we can’t be forgiven for. Maybe it’s because we do it repetitively. Maybe it’s because we can’t even admit we’ve done it. Ask God for forgiveness. He never tires of forgiving us. And he wants us to be free. Now. Always. Eternally.
*** The Beatitudes are our identity card as Christians. Our world would look different if we took the Sermon on the Mount seriously. Seriously, get serious about living them.
*** No life was made to be thrown away. From yes, the unborn, to the suffering addict, to the refugee, the prisoner, the elderly. . . What are we doing to ourselves when we let our culture double down on death for the sake of perceived convenience?
That’s about as good a summary of Francis’ message to the World as I can find. I also want to reprise the thoughts of Colonel Lang that he posted in March 2013 when Cardinal Bergoglio was elevated to Pope Francis. Over the years, Colonel Lang did not hesitate to voice his displeasure with some of the things Pope Francis said and did, but he remained a Roman Catholic soldier to the end. Both of them did.
I wrote here earlier that the Catholic Church needed a moderate and evangelical pope. I think that is what the Catholic Church got. He was a Jesuit priest. This has great significance. The members of the Society of Jesus are teachers and missionaries who give up the possibility of being a bishop when they become members of their community. To become a bishop they must leave the order, but they never really leave in their hearts. They are intellectuals who are known in popular culture as “God’s marines.” Bishop John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop in the United States began his priestly life as a Jesuit trained in Belgium.
The name choice is significant. This man rode the bus back to the clerical hotel last night. He rode the bus with his former colleagues and let his limo follow along behind. Once at the hotel, he went to his room, collected his things and went down to the front desk to pay his bill in person. When reminded that he was now the proprietor and need not pay the bill, he said that he wanted to make sure that they all pay their bills. It will be interesting to see how he has the papal apartments decorated or if he lives there at all. Vatican City is a big place, he could live anywhere within it.
The possibilities for this man to lead by example on issues of poverty and the spread of the Good News of the gospels is virtually unlimited. pl
he seemed to me to be more Parrish Priest than Politician / power-broker. more about love & service than CEO managing a 1.4B person enterprise. will be interesting (Capt Obvious here) to see how the selection process unfolds. {btw, “Conclave” was a timely film worth checking out for its attention to the selection process – a star chamber from the inside.}
Perhaps…the Next..and Maybe Last..Pope..Will Be a Roman,,of Strong
Roman Character…….
JIM
jim ticehurst,
I’m a little leery of strong Roman character. The popes of the “saeculum obscurum” were of Roman character.
Only thing that bothered me about him was the hypocrisy regarding illegal aliens. The Vatican has many rules on entry to include dress codes and even buying tickets to certain attractions yet other countries have to take in people. Nonsense. Rules for thee not the Holy See.
babelthuap,
I actually agree with you. The Vatican did take in about 20 Syrian refugees years ago. But that seems merely symbolic to me. The only people living on Vatican grounds are the clerics working there, the Swiss guards and their families and some other Vatican employees. There are no permanent residents. But I still think they can do better than 20 Syrian refugees somewhere on the Vatican grounds.
I did the math on acres and population compared to Manhattan. The Vatican City could take in approximately 5K refugees from my calculation going vertical while still keeping most of their garden courtyards yet they take in zero and demand everyone else display empathy and compassion.
If they took some from the most war torn countries it would do more to strengthen Catholicism than the constant yapping about LGBTQ. A real throwback to the Roman Empire days where you just have to concede and respect the faith. No other religion is doing something where they put their money so to speak where their mouth loves to preach.
babelthuap,
They could convert the Casa Santa Marta into refugee housing, but that would only be several hundred. Maybe do that another building or two. It would be far more effective if they increased their work in some of World’s larger refugee camps. Given that the US is no longer supporting anything humanitarian, the Church best step it up.
Babelthuap,
Foolishness and wickedness are usually recognized as such, by the majority, in time; unless presented as religious virtue by people with alleged religious authority, in which case it can reach lethal levels of toxicity.
How is mass islamic immigration into the heart of Christendom going to further western civilization and Christianity? How does becoming all inclusive and accepting of lifestyles and attitudes that neither the OT nor NT approved of, going to help people walk the straight and narrow path? There is no need for salvation if nothing is sinful.
This Pope has done a lot to destroy the church and the souls the church is supposed to support. The full impact has yet to be seen and will echo through the generations.
“Over the years, Colonel Lang did not hesitate to voice his displeasure with some of the things Pope Francis said and did, but he remained a Roman Catholic soldier to the end.”
Not being a Roman Catholic, I don’t have any loyalty to that church nor need to play that game. The dead Pope was a fool of the first order and an enemy of Christianity; basically, just another spaced out virtue signaling dope much like a beauty pageant contest’s desire for world peace, etc.
I sincerely hope that Rome does better this time. They should learn something from the Eastern and Armenian Orthodox churches and dispense with Jesuit philosophy and EU political influence.
BS Eric. The only world leaders that are fools and enemies of Christianity are Trump and Putin.
Liberation theology = Marxism with a smiley face cardboard Jesus cutout. No more Jesuits!
Eric….I Remember Clearly..As Do many many others That Barack and Michelle Obama..Went To Jeremiah Wrights Church for 20 years..being Taught..
LIBERATION THEOLOGY…..Which Obama Did Well..All Over The Middle
along With The Clintons…
JIM
I was a bit perplexed by the framing of this El Pais article, I don’t think that Bannon’s
European evangelization endeavers was that impressive. … Trump visited him too the Hotel De Russie on the luxurious Via del Babuino, not the Trisulti Charterhouse, earlier an abbey?
But yes the US definitively was wide open to the Carlo Maria Viganò mindset. But was it spearheading the Francis-is-the-anti-christ-stormtroopers too? …?…
Raymond Burke can still join the Conclave at 77?
https://tinyurl.com/Raymond-Burke
POPE FRANCIS
Traditionalists who tried to overthrow Pope Francis wait for their moment at the conclave. For a long time, a sector of the Church directed and financed from the US attempted to depose the Vatican leader in order to impose its own identity-based ideology
*******
I’ll definitively will carefully study First Things, longtime no see:
https://firstthings.com
Requiescat in pace.
” The possibilities for this man to lead by example on issues of poverty and the spread of the Good News of the gospels is virtually unlimited. pl ”
The possibilities were there. They were roads not taken.
The civilizational chevauchée being carried out by a variety of global NGOs, including Catholic Charities, is a disgrace. I don’t recall the pope condmening that. Nor the latifundia now existing in any of the countries on his continent of birth. Opening borders and refugee resettlement, the current platitudes de jur, only allow those abuses to continue. Not to mention that atrocities in Africa that Cardinal Sarah, forced into retirement by Francis, called out over the years.
Fred,….Remember Colonial Lang..Long Ago told “FRANK” to go
back To Argentina With Him..it Was All About Getting As Many
into the USA..And Growing The Church ..To Be Supreme..As in England.
Midevil..
JIM
Jim,
Francis was a great disappointment. The UK is allowing itself to be conquered; again. The “Defender of the Faith” isn’t, just as he and his brother, while Princes of the Realm, did nothing about Rotherham, and set a personal moral example as …
As a disgusted non practicing catholic from a hardcore catholic family, I absolutely hated Frank. He was a complete disaster for the church. He tried to make the faith more palatable to the rest of the world when Catholicism is a more stringent form of Christianity. As the rest of the Christianity was feminizing and rainbow flags began popping up in front of their temples, the Commi pope was jumping on the bandwagon. Aside from blowing hot air toward the pedophile priests, he also had gay priest orgies, Cardinals in women lingerie, and male prostitutes in the Vatican apartments. He said “Who am I to judge?” This made the faithful walk away from the church instead of converting new members. 40+ catholic diocese in the US filed for bankruptcy in recent years. The church can’t even pay some retired priests their retirement pension with the future of pensions insolvable. Priests and nuns have left under his watch. 25% of Catholic churches and schools have closed in my Catholic city named after a Saint in the last 4 years alone. All this while the fastest growing christian faith in the US is ….Eastern Orthodoxy. Why? It’s pro patriarchy. People are sick and tired of being bombarded with LGBTQ. A Catholic church should be a sanctuary from all the feminists and queers. If you don’t like it find another faith- we are more elite. Should the conclave ever elect a real catholic this time around, I hope the Church conducts a “Spanish Inquisition” on these faggots and misandrists. I just might show up to mass and do my rosaries.
Condottiere,
You ought to join Spanky and Alfalfa in the He-Man Women Haters Club.