POPE FRANCIS AS I KNEW HIM

It was about 8.30 am on April 21, 2025, the day after Easter when we were getting ready to continue the joy of the triumphant resurrection of Jesus Christ that the Italian TV stations began to give a shock to most of us with the announcement of the sudden death of Pope Francis at 7.35 am that day.

- REV. FR. VIMAL TIRIMANNA, CSSR, IN ROME

Although he was 88-years and was convalescing from the complexities of double bilateral multi-microbial pneumonia and multiple bronchiectasis attacks, it was a 'shock' because hardly 24 hours before, he had appeared on the balcony of St.Peter's Basilica to deliver the customary Urbi et Orbi blessing. That day, he even summoned courage, in spite of his apparent frailty, to ride one last time in the popemobile among the thousands of faithful gathered at St.Peter's Square which in retrospect appears to be his way of bidding farewell to the people he loved so much.

One news agency reported his passing away in these fitting words: "Pope Francis slipped quietly from this world-his departure marked not by spectacle, but by the same humility and human closeness that defined his pontificate".

Simplicity of life

In 2013, he was elected Pope, thus, becoming the first Jesuit to become a Successor of St. Peter, the Apostle to whom Jesus entrusted his Church. He took the name Francis. It was the first time this name was adopted by a Pope of the Catholic Church, to honour the great Italian saint of the poor, St. Francis of Assisi who lived a simple and poor life, imitating the gospel value of detachment.

Till the end, Pope Francis tried his best to live up to his adopted papal name 'Francis' not only by living a simple, detached life, but also by reaching out to the poor and to those condemned to live in the margins of both the Church and the wider society of the world.

This was nothing new for Bergoglio (as I regularly hear from my Argentinian students in Rome) because even as the Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he was known for his simple lifestyle, such as travelling by public transport (bus, train and metro/sub-way) and for living in an ordinary flat cooking his own meals. This is something unheard of with regard to a vast majority of the Episcopal dignitaries in the contemporary Catholic Church.