Rash: Pope Francis’ lesson and legacy of love, faith and service

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Pope Francis was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital on St. Valentine’s Day. He died at 88 on Easter Monday. The symmetry and symbolism of those two dates reflect a legacy of love and faith that made him a unique, indeed singular, spiritual and even geopolitical leader.

St. Valentine, said the Rev. Christopher Collins, vice president for mission at the University of St. Thomas, signals not just “sentimental love but is self-sacrificing; certainly, Valentine and all the martyrs indicate that. And ultimately, of course, Jesus gives witness to a deeper love than what the [holiday’s] commercial enterprises do.”

The pontiff offered love long before he became Francis on March 13, 2013, when he began his papacy by greeting the throngs at St. Peter’s Square with a humble “good evening.” As Jorge Mario Bergoglio he was often affectionally called the “slum bishop” for his insistence that he and his priests minister to the destitute — an ethos he emphasized during his papacy, particularly regarding refugees and migrants. And he not only admired the spirit of those fleeing on foot but admonished the well-heeled with critiques of capitalist excess, especially the ecological degradation he examined in his encyclical on the environment, “Laudato Si’.”

All this was indicative of a “primary pastoral highlight of his: a call for the world to be attentive to the needs of those who’ve been displaced for all kinds of reasons,” said Collins, who continued that early on, Francis focused on the need to “make the love of Christ known and to experience the love of Christ in the peripheries and not just the center of power.”

Francis, a Jesuit from the global south, was himself not from the center of power, and that influenced his papacy, Miguel H. Diaz, who served as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See during the Obama administration, said in an email interview last month. Diaz, now at Loyola University Chicago, said that “as a Jesuit, he has been deeply shaped by Ignatian spirituality, which underscores the invitation to find God in all places and things. As a Latin American, he has been shaped by the history of a continent that is heir to European and other forms of colonization, dictatorships, violence, socio-political instability, and much human suffering.”

Pope Francis’ greatest legacy, Diaz said, was “his invitation for nations and for each one of us to reject human indifference, especially as he has reminded us again and again, rejecting the social, cultural, economic and political practices that marginalize, inflict much suffering, and exclude members of our human family. From the beginning his message has been to listen to the needs of others and to reject an idolatrous approach to self, community and nations.”

This message manifested itself in social issues as well. The pope, said Diaz, “invited us to refrain from judging LGBTQ+ persons when he uttered the now oft-cited expression ‘Who am I to judge?’ And he has repeatedly hosted transgender persons at the Vatican affirming their status as children of God and their full human dignity. Lastly, he has called for the Roman Catholic Church, which includes all cardinals and bishops, to embrace synodality,” which Diaz explained “is about listening and owning the fact that God speaks through many voices, especially those that have been sidelined within the Church and society.”

Amplifying those voices often came with controversy from conservatives who thought he strayed from doctrine and liberals who thought he didn’t stray enough. Other challenges the next pope will inherit will be the unhealed wound of the worldwide sexual abuse scandal, the role of women in the church, reproductive rights and other issues vexing not just communities of faith but broader society as well.

The coming conclave comes in the context of “turmoil that is going on in the political and economic reality of the United States and how that impacts other parts of the world,” Collins said, adding: “It’s really hard to think of a global moral voice, especially now, in this kind of vacuum, so that becomes very much part of the context of those deliberations.”

That vacuum is global, particularly for the world’s nearly 1.3 billion Catholics, including the approximately 720,000 in 186 parishes in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, whose archbishop, Bernard A. Hebda, said in a statement: “How providential that our loving God would call Pope Francis home just as we begin our 50 days of celebrating Christ’s victory over sin and death. I trust that he felt the comforting prayers of the world as he joined the crowd at St. Peter’s Square yesterday for the Church’s celebration of Jesus’ victory over sin and death. The Holy Father’s powerful Easter greeting, expressing his closeness to those experiencing the scourge of war and abandonment will be long remembered as his testament.”

Collins, considering the pope’s extraordinary life of love, faith and service, culminating in his hospitalization on St. Valentine’s Day and his death on Easter Monday, concluded that “there’s something about that beautiful journey that strikes me as poignant.”

The world — sacred and secular — should feel the same.