The Argentine-born Francis with an Italian ancestry was deeply rooted in the essentials a Pope, or the Vicar of Christ, should have been: deep faith in god and a firm connect with the realities of an inequitable world
The passing of the head of the Catholic Church Pope Francis, marks the end of an era in which an institution as old as the Christian era made all-out efforts to renew itself to meet the exacting ideals of its founder.
The Argentine-born Francis with an Italian ancestry was deeply rooted in the essentials a Pope, or the Vicar of Christ, should have been: deep faith in god and a firm connect with the realities of an inequitable world. In every given occasion, Francis would remind the world of the uncomfortable comparisons about the fate of the poor and the indulgences of the rich. To buy small cars and think of the children dying of hunger, the Pope, who made papal limousine and palace unoccupied during his term, would advise the priests.
The Pope consistently questioned the logic of capitalism and its promise of trickle-down economics. He demolished the excuses of its apologists by showing them the mirror of reality: “The promise was that when the glass was full, it would overflow, benefiting the poor. But what happens, instead, is that when the glass is full, it magically gets bigger; nothing ever comes out for the poor.”
The Pope embraced the refugees and asked the West, where most of his faithful lived, to give them shelter at a time when they were growing suspicious of the influx. He would speak consistently against wars and the misery they bring to the lives of the have-nots. He reminded the world of the unjust wars that are happening in Gaza and Ukraine even in his Easter message a day before his passing.
The Pope tried to clean up the mess created by the Vatican bureaucracy largely made of senior priests and introduced more transparency in an organisation with a flat structure with just two layers of authority. He sought forgiveness on behalf of church for children wounded by the sexual abuse of the priests and bishops while it remains a fact that he avoided punishing the guilty.
The Pope was said to be keenly interested in visiting India, but it appears he did not wait enough for an official invite and the attendant procedures that would have made his touch down in the land that nurtured one of the ancient cultures possible.
While the faithful would grieve the loss of their father figure, the humanists would feel the loss of a credible figure which rendered their voice louder. The world has been, for sure, rendered much poorer by the passing of Pope Francis.
