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…