Father Tom Knoblach, diocesan vicar for clergy and health care ethics and pastor of One in Christ Area Catholic Community, shared these thoughts upon the death of Pope Francis:
With people around the world, both Catholic and the multitudes touched by his witness to Jesus Christ and God’s merciful concern for each person, I also grieve at the death of Pope Francis.
My first thought is prayer for his eternal joy with Jesus. May he share the joy of heaven with all the saints, especially those he helped the Church to learn from: the confidence of St. Therese of Lisieux; the humility and courage of St. Joseph; the apostolic courage of his predecessors Sts. John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II; the selfless trust of St. Teresa of Kolkata; the vitality of youthful faith in Blessed Carlo Acutis.
Many will rightly comment on Pope Francis’ love for the poor, his courage in calling us to greater care for creation, his advocacy for those on the margins of society for whatever cause, his insistence on the dignity of every human life regardless of circumstances or status, his availability to all.
Other comments will reflect on the tensions the late Pope faced in a world troubled by war, a global pandemic, increasing polarization and division, and entrenched interests. He viewed with growing concern the risks of losing sight of our fundamental humanity in the wake of power wielded through money, technology and reliance on artificial intelligence and efficiency as the measure of success. He was outspoken and at times his spontaneity caused confusion or uncertainty, which he himself admitted.
But as I reflect on the past 12 years of his service to the universal Church, my personal thoughts focus on his humanity. He had the heart of a pastor above all. He bore, though perhaps reluctantly at times, the requirements of being a statesman, a political figure, an administrator of an international organization. He strove to balance being the guardian of tradition and the sacred deposit of faith with the radical newness of living the Gospel in the possibilities and limitations of this moment in the Church’s life. He remained committed wholly to Christ in every circumstance, aware that he was chosen despite his unworthiness as his papal motto expressed in words from St. Bede’s commentary on the call of St. Matthew: “Miserando atque eligendo” (“looking on him with mercy he chose him”).
His writings will be studied afresh, to include “Evangelii Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”), “Fratelli Tutti” (“Brothers All”), “Traditiones Custodae” (on the celebration of Mass according to the 1962 Missal), “Spes Non Confundit” (on the Jubilee Year of Hope), and many others.
Of these, I find most revealing of his inner life those less known: “C’est la confiance,” on the wisdom of St. Therese of Jesus and her “little way” of trusting love; “Desiderio Desideravi,” on being truly and continually awestruck by what occurs in the Church’s liturgy, a real and living participation in the life of God in glory; and very recently, “Dilexit Nos” (“He Loved Us”), on renewed devotion to the Sacred Heart to rediscover our own humanity in the love of Jesus. There, he wrote:
“In this age of artificial intelligence, we cannot forget that poetry and love are necessary to save our humanity. No algorithm will ever be able to capture, for example, the nostalgia that all of us feel, whatever our age, and wherever we live, when we recall how we first used a fork to seal the edges of the pies that we helped our mothers or grandmothers to make at home. It was a moment of culinary apprenticeship, somewhere between child-play and adulthood, when we first felt responsible for working and helping one another. Along with the fork, I could also mention thousands of other little things that are a precious part of everyone’s life: a smile we elicited by telling a joke, a picture we sketched in the light of a window, the first game of soccer we played with a rag ball, the worms we collected in a shoebox, a flower we pressed in the pages of a book, our concern for a fledgling bird fallen from its nest, a wish we made in plucking a daisy. All these little things, ordinary in themselves yet extraordinary for us, can never be captured by algorithms. The fork, the joke, the window, the ball, the shoebox, the book, the bird, the flower: all of these live on as precious memories ‘kept’ deep in our heart.
“… Even encountering others does not necessarily prove to be a way of encountering ourselves, inasmuch as our thought patterns are dominated by an unhealthy individualism. Many people feel safer constructing their systems of thought in the more readily controllable domain of intelligence and will. The failure to make room for the heart, as distinct from our human powers and passions viewed in isolation from one another, has resulted in a stunting of the idea of a personal center, in which love, in the end, is the one reality that can unify all the others.
“If we devalue the heart, we also devalue what it means to speak from the heart, to act with the heart, to cultivate and heal the heart. If we fail to appreciate the specificity of the heart, we miss the messages that the mind alone cannot communicate; we miss out on the richness of our encounters with others; we miss out on poetry. We also lose track of history and our own past, since our real personal history is built with the heart. At the end of our lives, that alone will matter.”
As we commend Pope Francis to God and pray for whomever the Spirit selects as his eventual successor, we are inspired by his final message to the Church on Easter in the traditional Urbi et Orbi greeting:
“The resurrection of Jesus is indeed the basis of our hope. For in the light of this event, hope is no longer an illusion. Thanks to Christ — crucified and risen from the dead — hope does not disappoint! (cf. Romans 5:5). That hope is not an evasion, but a challenge; it does not delude, but empowers us.
“All those who put their hope in God place their feeble hands in his strong and mighty hand; they let themselves be raised up and set out on a journey. Together with the risen Jesus, they become pilgrims of hope, witnesses of the victory of love and of the power of Life.”
Reactions from other area clergy:
“Pope Francis was a man who showed us that ‘love of God and love of neighbor are thus inseparable,’ to quote his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI. The love he had for the sick, the poorest of the poor and the afflicted flowed from his love for the Lord Jesus. In his last encyclical, “Dilexit nos,” he wrote, ‘When we carry [adoration] out with devotion, in union with many of our brothers and sisters and discover in the Eucharist the immense love of the heart of Christ, we ‘adore, together with the Church, the sign and manifestation of the divine love that went so far as to love, through the heart of the incarnate Word, the human race.’ What a beautiful lesson. I had the honor of meeting Pope Francis five years ago, back when I was a seminarian. When we future priests were all gathered together, he also gave us a glimpse of his love for the Mother of God, along with an important lesson, when he told us to ‘pray the Rosary, stay close to Mary, and never lose your sense of humor.’ I’ll never forget that.” – Father Thomas Skaja, parochial vicar of Northern Cross Area Catholic Community
“I am deeply saddened by the death of our Holy Father. His papacy was one of love for his people and creation. His papacy also was one of needed witness, teaching and a strong voice for both the Church and our world, especially for those on the peripheries. What he taught, and how he lived his ministry, will be his lasting legacy. Holy Father, your people thank you and pray for you.” – Bishop Emeritus Donald Kettler
“I join the Church in mourning and remembering Pope Francis’ life and ministry, while also looking ahead to the future with faith and hope. I’m offering my prayers for the eternal rest of Pope Francis’ soul, remembering Francis’s ministry and impact he had on the Church and the world.” – Deacon Rick Scheierl, Deacon Moderator for the Diocese of St. Cloud
Read an interview given by Father Derek Wiechmann: https://www.universitychron.com/uncategorized/christchurch-newman-center-remembers-pope-francis/.