REMEMBERING FRANCIS

I admit it; I find transitions hard. My parents told me that I didn’t do well when our family moved from the Chicago area to Springfield, Illinois, when I was five years old. I don’t remember that, but I remember being disoriented when we moved five years later to northern Illinois. Perhaps that partially explains why our family has lived in the same house for the past forty-six years.

A more recent transition that I’m struggling to accept is the passing of Pope Francis. A person doesn’t have to be a Catholic to have been inspired by his witness and example. I could tell in the last weeks of his life that Francis was close to death, but as was true of millions of other people, I still hoped that he would recover.

I remember the first time I saw Pope Francis. I was teaching a course on church history, and we had a TV monitor in the room anticipating the white smoke from the Vatican that indicates that a new pope has been selected. My first reaction when he appeared on the balcony was disappointment. He looked old.

Then it was announced that he’d chosen the name “Francis,” the first time in the Church’s life when St. Francis had been honored in that way. But it was when Pope Francis spoke that he instantly won me over. He invited those gathered in St. Peter’s Square and those watching around the world to pray for him. Sure, that could have been a pious gesture, but then he paused in silence for all of us to do that—pray for him and with him.

There are so many unforgettable moments in Pope Francis’ time of service—I won’t say “reign.” He didn’t reign so much as serve. His wearing a cheap Timex watch, his continuing to wear old orthopedic shoes, his riding around in a small Fiat, and his living in a dormitory for priests—all that showed us that power and humility could coexist.

I also remember Francis’ first visit to the States, when, after he spoke to Congress, he was invited to lunch with government leaders. He begged off, saying he already had lunch plans. What was more important to Francis than schmoozing with senators and representatives? His lunch with inmates at one of our prisons.

Perhaps my most vivid memory of Pope Francis was how he acted after Hamas’ attack on Israelis and Israel’s retaliation on the Palestinians. I read that on the day after the attack, the Israeli Ambassador to the Vatican made an immediate demand. The ambassador demanded that Pope Francis refer to Israel as the sole victim and the Palestinians as the aggressors.

But Pope Francis didn’t do that. He prayed repeatedly for both the Israelis and the Palestinians and, in the process, exposed the current craziness in our country where the Palestinian people as a whole are blamed for what Hamas ordered. If Pope Francis had managed to come to the States and speak at one of our major universities before he passed away, he might have been arrested for praying for the Palestinians as well as the Israelis. I’m sure that wouldn’t have scared him.

What was clear to all of us who watched Pope Francis was that no one was invisible to him. So while I wish Pope Leo well, I am in no hurry to move on and end my grieving for Pope Francis. All of us were blessed to live at a time when this pope, this “papa,” revealed the power of courage when it is combined with humility and compassion.