Italian
The world has stopped. A voice has faded. But what he left behind will resonate for generations.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Argentine Jesuit who astonished the world with the gentle strength of meekness, has left the earthly stage. But the curtain does not fall: it remains open, illuminated by his words, his encyclicals, his silences, his gestures
VATICAN CITY. When in March 2013 he appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s, we still didn’t know him. A name never before pronounced by a pope, Francis, and a gesture never seen before: he asked the crowd to pray for him, even before blessing them. In a single moment, he erased the liturgical distance between the Pope and the people. It was there that the most silent and profound revolution in the modern history of the Church began.
He was the son of Piedmontese migrants, born in Buenos Aires in 1936, with a vocation for the Jesuits and the soul of a street pastor. He carried the smell of the outskirts in his heart and that of books in his mind. But it was his ability to live among the people, speaking with understandable words, that conquered the world. He never imposed, but always proposed. He didn’t seek applause, but encounter. He didn’t fear conflict, but conformity.
The Joy of the Gospel and the Dancing Gospel
One of the first key texts of his pontificate, “Evangelii Gaudium” (2013), was an invitation to rediscover the joy in the Gospel, not to proclaim Christ with a Lenten face without Easter, as he liked to say.
“I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security” – he wrote. A programmatic statement that overturned the defensive model of the past. It was no longer a time to defend fortresses, but to go out into the crossroads of the world, where the questions burn and hearts are weary.
“Laudato Si'”: the cry of the earth and the poor
In 2015 he published “Laudato si’”, the encyclical on integral ecology that no one expected from a Pope. He spoke about climate change, unrestrained consumption, social injustice. But above all, he spoke about care. Of the earth, of course, but also of relationships, human dignity, time, beauty. A document that was read in the halls of the UN, in secular universities, in environmental circles. Francis understood that faith can no longer ignore science and technology, that spirituality is either embodied or an escape.A Revolutionary Language
He was a master in speaking to everyone. “Who am I to judge?” – he said in 2013 speaking about homosexuals. Those words went around the world, not because they abrogated doctrines, but because they changed the tone.God is first of all mercy, he repeated. Even towards divorced and remarried, transgender people, stateless migrants. He had a gaze as wide as the ocean and as deep as the silence of monasteries.
His strongest speeches were never shouted. He delivered them in a calm voice, but with content that challenged certainties:
– “We do not live in an era of change, but in a change of era”;
– “Reality is more important than the idea”;
– “The Church is not a dogma, but a paternal home where there is room for everyone”.
Fratelli tutti: politics as care
In 2020, while the world was battling the pandemic, Francis published “Fratelli tutti”: a social encyclical that brought together the thinking of Francis of Assisi and today’s challenges.
He condemned war, racism, wild neoliberalism, the loneliness of the elderly, the brutality of the web, verbal violence. He called for a politics of the common good, an economy of inclusion.
He was the Pope speaking to believers, but also to atheists, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, secularists. The only non-negotiable principle was humanity.
Pope of gestures, not just words
Francesco knew that symbols are worth more than decrees. He washed the feet of Muslim migrants, had lunch with the homeless, visited prisoners, knelt before the leaders of South Sudan to ask for peace.
He crossed the borders – physical and mental – that separate religion from compassion.
Lampedusa, Mosul, Nagasaki, Bangui, Lesvos, the juvenile detention center of Casal del Marmo: his spiritual atlas was made of geographies of abandonment. But wherever he went, he carried the same message: closeness.
In recent years, his body has become more curved, but his voice more straight. He has not hidden his struggles. He appeared in a wheelchair, short of breath, but with a long spirit.
He said:
“When I can’t go on anymore, I will be the first to step aside”.
The inheritance that never dies
Francesco leaves us at a time when the world needs more than ever fathers, not masters.
His figure – gentle, proud, simple, prophetic – will remain engraved in the collective memory. Not only of the faithful, but of all humanity.
He gave Christianity the face of the servant who washes feet, not the judge who condemns.
He leaves us as an inheritance a Church that listens, that cries and laughs, that gets its hands and heart dirty.
We will miss her voice, her Argentine accent, her sudden jokes. But most of all, we will miss that sense of being understood, even by those who are too far from an altar to kneel.
Now it’s up to us to pick up the torch. It’s up to us to guard the Gospel that has been given back to us as living news. It’s up to us to bear the weight and joy of a Church that walks. Thank you, Francesco.
