ROMAN Catholics around the world were delighted when Pope Francis marked Easter Sunday by blessing thousands gathered in Vatican City’s St Peter’s Square and then went on a surprise tour of the piazza in his open-topped Popemobile.
Hopes rose that the 88-year-old pontiff had recovered from the double pneumonia that had left him close to death in hospital.
Tragically, his appearance took on a different significance on Monday when the Vatican announced he had died hours later. In hindsight, it is remarkable that a frail pope was able to accomplish what he wanted to do on such a symbolic day.
To the end, Pope Francis was true to the causes he made a hallmark of his papacy – notably, the plight of migrants.
In his traditional message on Sunday, read out on his behalf, he lamented the “contempt” that is “stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalised and migrants”. It came a day after he had met JD Vance, the US vice-president and a Catholic, with whom he had previously disagreed publicly over Donald Trump administration’s policies on migration.
Another cause was climate change. He rightly made the link between the threat to the planet – “our common home” – and the large-scale migration it might cause, saying that the poor are “on the front line of environmental degradation” because they often subsist on agriculture, forestry and fishing.
In his final message, Pope Francis condemned the “deplorable humanitarian situation” in Gaza. A strong advocate of Palestinian rights, he spoke regularly during the Hamas-Israel conflict with the pastor of the Holy Family Church in the territory, where lay members sheltered both Muslims and Christians.
A breath of fresh air in the Catholic Church, Pope Francis spurned the trappings of power and undoubtedly had a human touch. The word “marginalised” ran through his public statements like the words inside a stick of rock.
Those outside the Church gave him credit for championing the excluded, antagonising his internal conservative opponents in a divided movement he was unable to heal.
His successor will now be chosen by up to 138 cardinals under the arcane, highly secretive process depicted in Conclave, the film based on Robert Harris’s book.
The Argentinian Pope Francis, the first non-European pope in 1,300 years, appointed more cardinals from the “global South” he cared so much about. Perhaps the conclave will afford him a fitting legacy by choosing the first Black pope.
The Catholic Church should resist the temptation to do what the Church of England has done in the past: play pendulum politics by replacing a moderniser with a traditionalist or vice versa.
Pope Francis was a reformer frustrated by what could be called the “deep state” of conservative vested interests at the Vatican.
Arguably, he upset both liberals, whose hopes for greater change were raised but dashed, and conservatives, who suspected he intended to go further than he admitted.
Unfortunately, his unfinished revolution ran out of time but it should be completed by his successor. He should follow Pope Francis’s own guiding star: the Church must apply the gospel to today’s world. – The Independent
