Second Sunday of Easter, April 27, 2025
If you have visited my office you have seen prominently displayed two photos of me with Pope Francis, one taken in 2018 and the other in August, 2024, just last year. Because I attended twice the Capuchin General Chapter, I was able twice to meet and shake hands with our now deceased Holy Father. In 2024, I was with Pope Francis the day before he left for his longest international trip, a journey to Asia and the Pacific, including Papua New Guinea. Despite his age and the burden of a long journey the next day, he seemed relaxed and at peace. As we friars met him, he looked each of us in the eye and received us with respect and full attention.
People ask sometimes if I like the Pope. My answer is always, “I am a Catholic; he is the Pope. I don’t understand your question”. By this answer, I want to say that for a Catholic, the Pope is not just another politician whom we like or dislike. He is the Vicar of Christ, the Successor of Peter. It is Catholic doctrine that we accept the teaching of the Pope as part of God’s plan for the time in which we live.
When he was elected and took the name Francis, after Saint Francis of Assisi, I was, of course, thrilled. Pope Francis chose his patron because Saint Francis loved the poor, promoted peace and understood that mother earth should be protected because it was God’s creation.
Pope Francis was the Pope we needed for these past 12 years. Early in his pontificate, Pope Francis made news when he said of a homosexual priest who was being maligned, “who am I to judge”. Though he never changed the teachings of the church on any topic, his impulse was always mercy.
Pope Francis insisted that the way of Christ is to favor people on the“peripheries”, people who are in some way outcast. He shook up some Catholics when he celebrated his first Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper, not at Saint Peter’s Basilica, but at a juvenile jail where he washed the feet of teens accused of crimes, regardless of religion. He washed the feet of Muslim teens and was much criticized by some. On Holy Thursday last week for the first time in his pontificate, he was not able to go to the jail, but he sent a warm greeting.
Pope Francis had a special concern for the millions of migrants and refugees who had left their homes to escape war, violence and dehumanizing poverty and he urged rich nations to receive poor migrants with compassion.
Pope Francis was unequivocal in his defense of unborn children, once referring to abortionists as “hit men”. Pope Francis spoke often about respect and inclusion of elderly persons and he highlighted the importance of grandparents in families.
Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si, was a landmark where he stated that protection of the environment is Catholic doctrine. Again, this is not a new teaching, but Pope Francis issued the first encyclical on the environment.
God never abandons the church. Popes rule for a time, but they always die; they are humans like all of us. And then God provides for the church a new pope. Pray for Pope Francis that he will rest in the Father’s house, heaven. Pray also that the Holy Spirit will guide the Church as we choose a new pope. Jesus told Saint Peter that he was the “rock” on which the Church is built and Jesus told Peter that the gates of hell would never prevail against the Church. Jesus told Peter that He entrusted the “keys of the kingdom to Peter and that what Peter bound on earth, would be bound in heaven. Jesus established the office of the Pope and God always provides the Church with a Successor to Peter. Francis was that Successor. Let’s pray now for the one who will follow Pope Francis.
Go Make Disciples: An Introductory Training in Missionary Discipleship
