Pope Francis Was Okay

On the day of his funeral, I share what Pope Francis means to us.

I woke up last Monday morning in a fog, reached for my phone, and tapped open The Washington Post app.

Why the Post at 6:00 a.m.? I have no idea, but there it was—the headline: Pope Francis, Dead at 88.

I closed the app. I thought, surely I’m still half asleep, and this is some subconscious push notification dream. I opened it again—still there.

Francis had died.

Dang it.

I knew this day would come. Today, April 26, 2025, we buried Pope Francis, ending one of the most impactful papacies in history.

He wasn’t a young man when the College Full Of Cardinals elected him back in 2013, and we’ve known about his health struggles, like when he had a part of his lung removed as a kid. It was just a few weeks ago that we were all praying for him to come through his extended, intense hospital stay.

When he returned to the Vatican, I thought he was back for good, but the headline on Monday said otherwise. It hit hard. It felt like we had just lost our protector, someone we needed, who was on our side. I never met the man, but I prayed for him on occasion and prayed that he could live a little longer, knowing what’s going on here in the richest, most powerful country. I can safely admit – I was being selfish.

Who?

Like the rest of the world, I didn’t know the little man who stepped onto the balcony of St. Peter’s in 2013 and asked the world to pray for him.

To pray for him. Imagine a pope who thought of himself as one of us?

Francis was unique in many other ways. He was the first pope from the religious order of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the first pope from the Southern Hemisphere, the first one who didn’t take all the fancy garments and vehicles that they usually bestowed, and the first pope to stay in the Vatican’s version of a Motel Six.

Jorge Bergoglio was born in Argentina in 1936 to Italian immigrants. He was raised in the Catholic faith, and his grandmother taught him how to pray. This small connection between grandmother, grandson, and God helped form a man who would become transformational in the decades to come.

His investment in his faith led him to join the Jesuits in 1958.¹ After he was ordained in 1969, Bergoglio became a wise, dedicated priest who displayed his leadership skills and ability to connect with various people.

Twenty years later, in 1998, he became the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. Despite this huge role within the church, Cardinal Bergoglio rode the subway and invited the homeless to eat dinner with him. He prayed for them and with them.

To Love or Not To Love

The best thing I loved about Pope Francis was his genuine spirit. I'm sure he took the name Francis for a variety of reasons, but my guess is that it had to do with the idea that St. Francis Assisi left behind the comforts of wealth and privilege, stripped himself of any attachments, and poured his heart into loving and caring for all of God’s creation—not just His people, but His earth and His animals.

Francis wasn’t someone who claimed to know the answer to everything. Once, a young boy asked him if the dog who recently passed away would be in heaven. Francis said, of course, which caused an uproar in many parts of the church because Pope Benedict XVI reminded everyone a few years earlier that dogs don’t have souls, and therefore no heaven.

Francis was trying to cheer up a sad kid, and the Church was trying to ensure there wasn’t any confusion about heaven and golden retrievers. That’s the genuine self against rules and regulations.

He took on his grandmother's role and taught us to love better, lead with mercy, and be a church of hope and healing, not judgment and promotion. He encouraged investing in prayer.

Prayer is a decision, much like love. You can either choose to love or not. It’s funny that soulless dogs have figured this out, but we humans need prayer to help us with that decision process.

For me, praying helped me figure out my return to work for the Catholic Church, where I spent at least half my career either working directly for them or having them as clients. I remember a year ago thinking, "I’m pretty much done working for the Church." God had other plans.

I chose to return, and I’m glad I did, because I’m in a great job leading a massive fundraising campaign for a Jesuit-run parish. Most of the effort is to increase the spaces around campus for our parishioners and staff to work, organize, and connect.

It is easy to connect this campaign to Francis because he encouraged us to have space in our faith to imagine, be curious, doubt, and return.²

Under his papacy, we were invited to think beyond sexuality or sexual activities and outcomes. Instead, think of the poor, the earth, and our siblings, regardless of their gender, attraction, or marital status, and ensure everyone knows there are no barriers to receiving God’s love. Francis never changed God’s doctrine. He gave us God’s genuine love.

On Wednesday, we held a Mass in his memory. It was beautiful and understated—so very Francis. At the end, we shared a simple call: Give each other the gift of Pope Francis.

That means listen.
That means accompany.
That means pray and love.

It also means we don’t panic about what comes next.

What’s Next

I’m not afraid of where we go from here. I’m not interested in predicting papal elections or playing theological pundit. If the cardinals elect someone who seems like the opposite of Francis, that’s not a crisis. And if they elect someone who seems exactly like him, that’s not a guarantee of anything either. The Church is bigger than one man, even if that man redefined what a pope could look like.

We have a long way to go to untangle our political leaning from our faith. Pope Francis never fit neatly into political binaries. He washed the feet of Muslim immigrants after a terror attack in Europe—not because it was clever optics, but because it was Gospel. He said, “Who am I to judge?” not as a loophole or cop-out, but as a spiritual gut-check to a Church that too often mistakes rules for righteousness. He launched the Synod not as a bureaucratic reshuffling, but as an invitation for the Holy Spirit to speak through everyone. He prayed about all of this. He created the space to turn these prayers into action.

The best way I can describe the way Francis taught the faith was, Don’t be an asshole. While there are many admirable things to like about his two predecessors, you could argue their view was I’ve decided you are an asshole.

We will soon find out which side of the asshole spectrum the next pope will fall.

We buried Pope Francis today, but we don’t have to bury our genuine selves of not being assholes to each other, or the planet, or even The No-Good, Cheating New York Yankees.³

So yes, I mourn. But I also thank God for Pope Francis's gift —for a Church that became more human under his care and for a vision that doesn’t end with him.

Pray for me. I’ll pray for you.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Okay,

Chris

Today I call you friends.

1. The Jesuits were formed in the 16^th century under the leadership of the Spanish St. Ignatius of Loyola. They are a missionary order focusing on education, research, and cultural issues. They are also really good at college basketball.

2. There are so many stories in the Bible about returning that it makes you wonder why you would ever leave. Or that leaving is never the end. Like a Motel Six, God will leave the light on for you.

3. I am relishing the Guardians taking two out of three games from the Yankees this week. Thanks, Pope Francis!