Pope Francis: Requiescat in Pace

“The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; nothing is here befallen but what was the Lord’s will; blessed be the name of the Lord” — Job 1:21.

This morning, April 21, at around 7:35 am local time, Pope Francis, the 266th Pope and first Pope from the New World, passed from this world to the next. He had served as Pope for 12 years, having assumed the office of the Supreme Pontiff on March 13, 2013. Prior to serving as Pope, Francis had served as the Cardinal-Archbishop of Buenos Aires in Argentina.

It is beautiful that the Holy Father, who had in recent months struggled with ill-health, received the grace of being able to live through Easter to celebrate the resurrection of Our Lord one final time yesterday. It is further poetic that the two Popes before him, St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, also died within the Octave of a major feast, the former in the Octave of Easter, and the latter within the Octave of Christmas. It is clear that all three men lived devout lives of faith and truly loved Our Lord and His Church.

A critical part of Pope Francis’s legacy has been his attempts to fight back against what he eloquently dubbed as modern society’s “throwaway culture.” As Pope Francis explained, modern society has the pernicious habit of only using things as much as one needs, and throwing them out when one no longer needs this. This bad habit causes much suffering, as it encourages society to discard other people, particularly the unborn, the elderly, the needy, and the disadvantaged. Furthermore, this habit leads to things such as a world where a third of all food produced is thrown away despite hunger still being prevalent in many places.

It is important that to stay wary of attempts to frame Pope Francis and his legacy on a left-right political spectrum. Of course, Popes may have personal political views, and they have since long before modern left-right politics (indeed, the Papacy was probably at its most political during the early modern period when there were a variety of Popes who favored either the Habsburgs or the Valois/Bourbons during their centuries-long rivalry).

However, these views have little bearing on the role of the Pope the Vicar of Christ and defender of the Doctrine of the Church. Hence, it would be wrong to try to reduce Pope Francis’s legacy to one of political “conservatism,” “liberalism,” or “progressivism,” as his legacy instead is first and foremost as the successor to St. Peter. Furthermore, while the Pope may have expressed some views in alignment with these various ideologies, the late Holy Father’s beliefs transcended any particular ideology and expressed a broader pastoral ethic.

A crucial part of this pastoral ethic, one that transcends standard left-right politics, was the Pope’s unceasing attempts to promote peace and mutual understanding between nations, particularly with regard to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. While the Pope’s comments oftentimes would offend the partisans of one geopolitical cause or another, they reflected a great love of humanity and a desire to put an end to the wars and the evil prejudices that war can foster.

While people will certainly continue to discuss and debate Pope Francis and his legacy in the coming weeks, months, years, and even centuries, as Catholics it is our duty to pray for his soul and for the College of Cardinals as they prepare to elect the next Vicar of Christ.

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