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My reflections on Pope Francis's death, published today in Atlantico Quotidiano. This is my English translation of the original Italian text.
A practicing Catholic would never wish for it to happen, yet it happens anyway, and you’re always caught off guard. Statistically, the event of a pope’s death occurs multiple times in a Catholic’s lifetime, and the emotions are always powerful. I wouldn’t want to make comparisons—almost always inappropriate—but I can say that, at least in my case, the intensity with which one experiences the event is never the same. This, of course, depends on many factors, both subjective and objective.
Pope Francis’ death, however, is the most surprising. Almost everyone had done their best to convey relative optimism about the pontiff’s illness—doctors and the media had given us false hope. So, the news yesterday morning left us unprepared and stammering. “Francis is dead,” you repeat it to yourself almost to believe it.
Was he a great pope, like—for different reasons, to varying degrees—his predecessors from Pius XII onward? Time will tell. Certainly, to us conservatives, he was never particularly dear, unlike for progressives.
Memorable was his association with left-wing secularists like Eugenio Scalfari, which seemed to suggest, if not an outright alignment, at least a particularly bold and perilous leaning. His gestures “in that direction” were many, theologically speaking. Politically, we won’t even go there. Those in the opposite direction, in matters of theological doctrine, could be counted on one hand.
It’s impossible not to recall his outburst against the “faggotry” (frociaggine in the original Italian) in the clergy (hierarchy included) and his repeated warnings about the existence of the devil. No pope, as far as I remember, had gone that far. Personally, I loved him in those moments. Just as I always appreciated his call for simplicity, in prayer as in life. But his worldview, in the opinion of many—and rightly so, I believe—was very much that of a “pope from the ends of the earth,” to quote his first words.
Argentina is far away, perhaps too far for us Europeans, despite the blood ties for us Italians. The German pope was more “ours” (and then Joseph Ratzinger had become Roman…), just like the Polish pope—but in that case, we’re talking about a giant, Karol the Great, one of a kind, the man who changed the world.
It would be neither fair nor correct to compare Jorge Mario Bergoglio to his predecessors, but if, as they say, the heart wants what it wants, reason too has its own paths and bonds that aren’t easily shaken off. In short, comparisons shouldn’t be made—yet they are. But always with goodwill, never “with a hatchet,” always with moderation and good taste.
What matters, for a Catholic, is that the Pope is the Pope, always and no matter what. Before him, the believer kneels to receive his blessing, even if they disagree with much of what he says and teaches. And before death, all judgment is suspended, and one prays. In silence, even amid the deafening noise of these occasions.
Rest in peace, Your Holiness.
