Whether by luck or divine intervention, our Vicar for Communications and Editor of Catholic Outlook, Br Mark O’Connor FMS was in Rome for Easter and has extended his stay to cover one of the most significant events in the Church’s history. This is his second letter.
Walk in my shoes
It was an image worth more than a thousand words. The shoes of the fisherman.
None of us among the 250,000 people who queued patiently for several hours at St. Peter’s last week, had gotten close enough to actually see the tips of Francis’s shoes in coffin as he lay in state.
Many of us simply cried and reverently prayed or stood in silence, to honour this good man and pastor who so humbly washed the feet of others as Jesus challenged us all to at the Last Supper.
Pope Francis washing women’s feet at the Rebibbia Women’s Prison in Rome on Holy Thursday, 2024. He said it “is a sign of the mercy and love of God who goes out to meet the suffering and pain of humanity.” Image: Vatican Media
Of course, we now understand that his choice to call himself Francis, was deeply respected by those closest to him, especially in this very last gesture – even to his humble shoes.
We can now see him photographed in his simple coffin wearing his old deformed orthopaedic shoes, scuffed and worn, ready for his last pilgrim journey.
Perhaps we would never have expected to see Francis with the elegant and sumptuous slippers of the popes, those almost princely shoes in red or black leather that all his predecessors wore for their passage from earthly life to the one they believed in throughout their existence.
But Pope Francis had shown us from the first day that he was different. No pomp, no regal apartment, not interested at all even in spending holidays in the beautiful summer palace of Castel Gandolfo.
As I stood before him in St Peter’s, images flooded back to me of Francis over the years. I see him always carrying his own briefcase tightly in his hands on the airplane steps, always travelling in a small car like any ordinary person to attend official appointments and even going to the optician for some new glasses like any grandfather.
Pope Francis takes a trip to the optician for new glasses. Video from The Guardian.
Those old shoes are, in a way, his last eloquent message, a gesture that perhaps means more than a few encyclicals.
And perhaps this remarkable photo, before his coffin was sealed, will have more Gospel impact than his forty-seven trips to every corner of the planet?
A bittersweet yet joyful farewell
I arrived at 6.30am nearby St Peter’s Square for the 10am Mass. Getting out of the taxi in a hurry, I somehow managed to lose my iPhone…. I immediately prayed to Francis!
The crowd was 250,000 strong and it was barely possible to move.
The crowd at the Funeral Mass for Pope Francis. Image: Vatican Media
Francis’s funeral Mass was held on the steps of the basilica, with more than 50 world leaders and 11 reigning monarchs in attendance. They included US President Donald Trump, and former President Joe Biden, Argentine President Javier Milei, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., head of the largest Catholic nation in Asia. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky also attended and met with Trump before the funeral.
The crowds that flocked to St. Peter’s Square for the Mass watched mostly in silence, breaking it only to sing and follow along with prayers, and to applaud when they saw Francis’ coffin.
For me, the highlight was the homily delivered with great dignity and energy by Cardinal Re, which celebrated the life of the 88-year-old pope by the Dean of the College of Cardinals. I nervously wondered beforehand what to expect! But Re was magnificent.
In his homily, he recalled that Pope Francis “had great spontaneity and an informal way of addressing everyone, even those far from the church” and also had “a charisma of welcome and listening.” He said Francis was “rich in human warmth” and “gave of himself by comforting and encouraging us with a message capable of reaching people’s hearts in a direct and immediate way.” He described him as a missionary pope, who spread “the joy of the Gospel” and was convinced that “the church is a home for all, a home with its doors always open” and a “field hospital.”
The crowd broke into applause when the cardinal recalled Pope Francis’ efforts on behalf of refugees and migrants and his visits to advocate for them at Lampedusa, Lesbos and the US/Mexico border and the pope’s call to “build bridges, not walls” – a subject where Francis differed with President Trump, who was seated in the front row of the section for dignitaries.
The cardinal triggered several rounds of enthusiastic applause from the crowd when he spoke of Francis’ efforts for peace and his denunciation of wars.
He ended by recalling how Pope Francis used to conclude his speeches and meetings by saying, “do not forget to pray for me.” Today, the cardinal concluded his homily by reversing that request and said: “Dear Pope Francis, we now ask you to pray for us. May you bless the church, bless Rome and bless the whole world from heaven as you did last Sunday from the balcony of this basilica.”
Finally, the Pope’s modest coffin was carried back into the basilica for a final time at the end of the roughly two-hour-long Mass, which saw him praised as a “pope among the people.”
It was then taken in procession across the River Tiber to the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore for burial, passing Rome’s ancient Colosseum on the way. I rushed to the nearby streets to catch a glimpse of his wooden coffin as it was driven on a converted popemobile.
Pope Francis’ coffin in transit to the burial. Image: Supplied
Who am I to judge?
When speaking of the dead there is a lot of wisdom in the Latin phrase De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est, “Of the dead nothing but good is to be said.”
But that didn’t stop a range of secular and church commentators to jump right in and take ‘their pound of flesh’ even before Francis was buried.
As I read many of them, I thought maybe they get quite a few things right. Every Pope has their gifts and their limitations.
But as I read them, more and more I yearned for the day when these brilliant critics might also gaze into the mirror of their own souls and just once ask themselves: Who am I to judge?
I give you as an example some of the more critical ones for you to read and make your own judgement. I found these ones myself just too quick to rush judgement and definitely more ‘infallible’ in tone than anything Francis ever said:
- Pope Francis was a man of love who ultimately took the timid path
- Pope Francis’ perplexing legacy
- Pope Francis’s Illusions
- The Church after Francis
- Francis in Full
The Church is what we do next
But other writers struck a more hopeful note.
Reading them I was reminded of the recent 2024 film Conclave, which follows the drama of a fictional papal election and was broadly praised for its excellent cast, luxurious visuals, atmosphere of intrigue, and suspenseful storytelling.
A crucial scene came to mind as I read them. The soft-spoken Cardinal Benitez from Afghanistan (eventually elected Pope) ends his pivotal speech by telling his brother cardinals, “The Church is what we do next.”
It seemed to me very much in line with the real-life Pope Francis’s constant call for the Church to extend itself in seeking out the marginalised.
“The Church is what we do next.” By the way, that’s exactly what the Cardinals in the pre-conclave meetings are going to discuss this week! But more of that in my next letter.
These links are to pieces that all captured beautifully, at the very least, an image of the church of the future that Pope Francis certainly hoped and prayed for. I highly recommend them to you.
- In the Pope’s final days, doctors pleaded with him to rest. But Francis had a final mission
- Pope Francis: Outsider welcomed all into arms of Christ
- Cardinals prepare to battle over the future direction of the Catholic Church
- Francis’ Church
- ‘Who Among Us?’ The Cardinals Now Face Their Test.
- Perfect Love Casts Out Fear
Paul Lakeland’s insights impacted me the most:
“From the beginning of Francis’s papacy, I have thought that his primary objective was to change the culture of the Vatican so that there could be no going back.
When you set aside the trappings of the office and refuse the sterile comforts of the papal apartments, there is nothing between you and the world. Even, and maybe especially, your weaknesses are on view. People may rightly call him saintly, but I wonder if he is also actually the most genuinely human pope we have seen in our time.
If he has made no major changes in Church teaching, he has closed no doors. What he has achieved is the practical impossibility of a return to the old ways of the Vatican. He has cleared the way for his successor to do the things he perhaps thought the time was not ripe to achieve. He has done his best to see that the choice of the upcoming conclave will be a decision of a body of bishops who much more fairly represent the global Church than in any previous election.”
The last pilgrim journey
Francis’s earthly journey is now complete. I will visit his simple tomb in a few days’ time at St Mary Major’s when the massive crowds there perhaps disperse.
Tomb of Pope Francis in the Basilica of St. Mary Major. Image: Supplied
W B Yeats wrote in one of his poems: ‘But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you.’
I have been to Rome many times since Pope Francis was elected. I know enough people there to have tried successfully to get to meet him in person.
I never even tried. It was not necessary. I was content to simply love Pope Francis and his ‘pilgrim soul’ from a distance. That closeness and presence was more than enough.
It was a grace that will always sustain my faith.
In hope, please listen to this haunting tribute and beautiful hymn from Armenia. The love, the grief and the joy expressed say it all.
‘Goodbye Pope Francis. Naples embraces, Naples gathers around its Pope. We want to remember him like this – while we listen to one of the most emotional and heartbreaking songs ever sung. Goodbye. May the earth be light on you.’
View this post on Instagram
Musical Aramaic rendition of the Our Father that moved Pope Francis in Georgia – posted as a tribute by people in Napels on the evening of Pope Francis’s death.
In my next letter later in the week I will report on the pre-conclave meetings (in so far as this is possible!)
God Bless,
Brother Mark O’Connor FMS
P.S. When I arrived back at the Marist brother’s residence at the end of a long day I discovered the taxi driver had immediately driven all the way back there to return my iPhone. If that’s not a miracle in Rome, nothing is!
Br Mark in Rome last week with Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, S.D.B. of Honduras, who was a close friend of Pope Francis and Coordinator of his governing council (G9) for many years. Image: Supplied
