Farewell Franciscus: A shepherd with the smell of the sheep

On Monday, while waiting to board the connecting flight from Rome to Lagos, I saw the news of Pope Francis’ death in a WhatsApp group. Immediately, I thought it was a false alarm and fake news. These past months, since the Pope’s illness, many have declared him dead numerous times. To confirm my suspicion, I quickly googled and checked X, and to my surprise, this time the news was correct. This hit differently because some students and I who had travelled to Rome for the UNIV conference saw him close up on Sunday in St Peter’s Square after his Urbi et Orbi blessing. We also saw him when he came out before the Easter Vigil Mass at St Peter’s Basilica and when he came out briefly after the Palm Sunday Mass.

When we saw him, we knew he was frail and recovering, but it didn’t occur to us that he would pass away within the next 24 hours. Though sad, we feel privileged that we had the honour of being with him during his last days. It was touching hearing him say buona pasqua with much difficulty; that scene was reminiscent of when Pope John Paul II in 2005 appeared at his apartment window pressing his hand to his head and pounding a lectern in apparent frustration at his difficulty responding to the crowd in St. Peter’s Square. We are also grateful that despite his ill health, he pulled himself not only to give the city and the world his last blessing but also to give the world the last opportunity to see him alive. According to the Vatican, Pope Francis thanked his healthcare assistant, Massimiliano Strappetti, for encouraging him to take one last ride in the Popemobile in St Peter’s Square. The Vatican said Pope Francis had gotten reassurance from Strappetti after hesitating before the ride and asking, “Do you think I can manage it?” After the ride, he told Strappetti, “Thank you for bringing me back to the Square.” We also have to thank Strappetti for his words of encouragement and for allowing him to say a final bye to us.

Read also: Pictures: Crowd pay respect as Pope Francis’s open coffin is transferred to Saint Peter’s Basilica

As we mourn Pope Francis, I will hold dearly the rosary we got from the Pope on Holy Thursday. Before the trip, we had made arrangements to meet the Pope, but with his health, the possibility became extremely difficult and impossible. In his place, we had the honour of meeting Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, the Substitute for General Affairs of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State. He assured us the Pope was recovering, and he gave us beautiful rosaries blessed by the Pope.

The 12 years of Pope Francis were instructive and significant not because he was the first Jesuit, the first Argentinian and Latin American pope but because these circumstances and his experiences shaped his papacy. During these years, he lived true to the name Francis, which he chose in honour of St Francis of Assisi, who was known for his poverty, humility, and peace advocacy. As most people have said, he was a Pope of the peripheries; he said the church was a field hospital and encouraged the church to “boldly take the initiative, go out to others, seek those who have fallen away, stand at the crossroads and welcome the outcast”. He deepened his predecessor’s effort in advocating for peace, the poor, Africa and the environment. On Africa, he cautioned against the modern economic and ideological colonialism of Africa and advocated for cancelling or significantly reducing the debts of the poorest countries. As an advocate of peace, he never tired of repeating that “peace is possible”, and his kneeling before the leaders of South Sudan to beg for peace, alongside his advocacy in the Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Palestine wars, underscores his love for peace. In his final testament, he even offered the suffering that marked the final days of his life for peace in the world and brotherhood among peoples.

While Pope John Paul II was a strong advocate of “the globalisation of solidarity”, Pope Francis spoke against the “globalisation of indifference”. After the COVID pandemic, he noted that the “pandemic has highlighted the errors, the imbalances, the arrogance of our global economic system and that any economy that kills, that excludes, that starves and concentrates enormous wealth in a few to the detriment of many, that multiplies poverty and grinds down salaries… is not an economy. It is a perversion of economics itself.

Read also: Pope Francis’ Papacy characterised by tireless advocacy for marginalized, vulnerable – CBCN

In a world marked by materialism and consumerism, Pope Francis, through his example, challenged us that we can do with what is little, simple and necessary.

He was also keen on helping his fellow priests and bishops, which made him charge them to be shepherds with the smell of the sheep. His 2014 Christmas message to the Roman Curia remains a classic on what is expected of the clergy. In that message, he mentioned some of the curial diseases. According to him, these are diseases and temptations which weaken service to the Lord. These curial diseases include; the disease of thinking we are “immortal”, “immune” or downright “indispensable”; the disease of “Martha complex”, excessive busy-ness which is found in those who immerse themselves in work and inevitably neglect “the better part”: sitting at the feet of Jesus; the disease of mental and spiritual “petrification” which is found in those who have a heart of stone, the “stiff-necked”; the disease of excessive planning and of functionalism; the “spiritual Alzheimer’s disease” which consists in losing the memory of our personal “salvation history”, our past history with the Lord and our “first love”; the disease of rivalry and vainglory; the disease of existential schizophrenia which is the disease of those who live a double life; the disease of gossiping, grumbling and back-biting; the disease of idolizing superiors which is the disease of those who court their superiors in the hope of gaining their favour, which make them victims of careerism and opportunism since they honour persons and not God; the disease of indifference to others which occurs when each individual thinks only of himself and loses sincerity and warmth of human relationships; the disease of a lugubrious face, which consists of those glum and dour persons who think that to be serious we have to put on a face of melancholy and severity, and treat others – especially those we consider our inferiors – with rigour, brusqueness and arrogance; the disease of hoarding, which consists in trying fill an existential void in the heart by accumulating material goods, not out of need but only in order to feel security and lastly: the disease of worldly profit, of forms of self-exhibition.

Read also: Pope Francis died championing cause of the poor-Tinubu

Although directed to the curia, these “diseases” are applicable to all, irrespective of race, creed, political inklings, or social strata, and they constitute good material to examine our lives and consciences in determining whether we are becoming the better version of ourselves.

At the UNIV Conference, the theme discussed was Citizens of our World and thinking aloud; Pope Francis fits that description. He was a global citizen with a big, tender and elastic heart for all.

May FRANCISCUS rest in peace.