Peggy Noonan dubbed John Paul II “John Paul the Great,” and who can argue with that? Not I. He certainly fit the description.
From the beginning, Jorge Mario Bergoglio did not seek to be great, in the coarser senses of the term. He signaled that by the first thing he did after his surprise election as pope — deciding to be the first pontiff in our time named “Francis,” after the man who chose a life of poverty, becoming a plain-robed itinerant preacher, a beggar in a time of particularly worldly clericalism.
If you wish to be a cynic (and too many do), you can call Pope Francis’ gestures — living outside the imperial quarters reserved for the pope, riding in a Ford Focus instead of a limo, saying “Who am I to judge?” — a theatrical form of PR if you like. The point, though, is that he chose to display thoughts and behavior consistent with being, first and foremost, a follower of the carpenter from Nazareth.
From the moment he came out on that balcony and said “Buon giorno” to the crowd, he was humble. He was kind. He bestowed his blessings and his love upon the poor, the suffering, the marginalized. He lived the Great Commandment: He loved God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength, and he loved his neighbor as himself. Or more than himself.
He lived his life as an example, one that the world in our time sorely needed, and still needs. And as our pope, he expected us to do the same.
And now, as badly as we need him, he’s gone.
There’s a lot of simplistic conjecture about whether his successor will be a liberal or conservative — reducing the choice of a Supreme Pontiff to the same gross, ones-and-zeroes foolishness that we allow to destroy our politics in this century.
As I grew to love Francis, I listened to those who deprecated him from both the “right” and the “left” — the kind of Catholics who would vote for Trump, and the Culture Warriors who kept saying he didn’t go “far enough,” as though his purpose was to please them by granting all their fondest wishes.
All of them helped me see that this good man was my kind of pope. And we need another just like him — except maybe younger, so he can stay with us longer.
Related Posts
I kept that short — something I often strive and mostly fail to do, so congratulate me — because it’s been almost three days and I needed to say something before crashing for the night.
If you’d like deeper, more thoughtful commentary, read that of my friend E.J. Dionne. I hope this link lets you read it. Let me know if it doesn’t…
Brad, in Honor of the Fallen Shepherd: An Offering to the Memory of Pope Francis
Sanctus Pater, ora pro nobis.
In these early hours, as the wind and rain woke me with a force that felt like something holy, I thought of another kind of shaking—one not caused by storms, but by the passing of a soul who bore great weight for the world.
This poem is offered in memory of Jorge Mario Bergoglio—Pope Francis—the Holy Father whose spirit, voice, and humility touched the deepest corners of the earth. A son of Argentina, a servant of the poor, and a quiet revolutionary of love and mercy.
His was a papacy marked not by pomp but by presence. Not by thunder, but by the whisper of justice and compassion. In his memory, I share this piece of my own journey—a storm, a waking, a path walked with family, loss, love, and faith. Because even the smallest stories, like mine, can echo the great ones.
Ad perpetuam memoriam.
Requiescat in pace.
May the road he walked be made golden by the lives he touched.
The Wind Blew at Three
The wind blew at three,
like Gabriel’s breath across the sea,
and I returned, barefoot, not to Kansas—
but to a deeper dream.
Rain tapped like memories
on windows I forgot I owned,
and somewhere between sleep and storm,
I saw my father’s face in black-and-white film,
watching The Wizard of Oz with me
as we ate Norwegian kompón
and hummed, “If I only had a brain.”
There is no place like home—
but sometimes, home leaves first,
like Joan did,
and you follow its ghost down
every yellow brick road
until your heart’s too tired to chase.
But still,
Ana Liza smiles with mugs
bearing her daughters’ faces—
Angel Grace, first-year nurse, pinned with hope,
and little Hope herself,
laughing in the storm like
she’s been here before.
And maybe I have too.
Maybe I was William,
the soul my grandmother lost
and found again in me—
forging trails in dream-woods,
learning to hide,
to remember,
to lead when fathers fall.
The storm shook the sky,
but it also stirred the soil.
And I woke,
not lost,
but returned—
to love,
to calling,
to family far and wide.
To the quiet truth
that maybe,
just maybe,
I was never alone
Amen
Not being Catholic, I didn’t follow him, other than national news of him; instance, he was a Jesuit, which I know nothing about. I thought that it was appropriate that he passed away on Easter; news later revealed that he died early Monday.
I learned this past week that he had a sense of humor, which he revealed in a New York Times op-ed. He also hosted a group of comedians which included one of Charleston’s native sons, Stephen Colbert.
What has happened to poor Lindsey Graham? Trump’s Pope joke in one he really shouldn’t have followed up on.
The post Francis analysis by NY Times in today’s The State sort of treated the succession in a way you said you didn’t like. — a political type of horse race with international intrigue.
The piece set the stage with this: The election “comes at a particularly perilous time for the church that Francis left deeply divided . . . “
Yes, well… as good as the NYT is — and as good as their coverage of religion usually is, compared to what else is out there — that writer suffers from the usual malady. He doesn’t know how to cover anything other than as a horse race.
That’s not the way to cover politics, and it’s certainly not the way to cover the church…
Francis FOUND a church deeply divided, one that had been that way for decades. (It’s one of the main issues Cardinal Bernardin worked hard to address back in the ’80s.)And you know how you encourage it to be MORE divided? You write about it in terms such as those…