Pope Francis's Last Words

The Pope's Easter Homily and Urbi et Orbi Message

Pope Francis has been a monumental figure of the early 21st century. He has transformed the Catholic Church in profound ways that are already apparent but that will only be fully grasped in the decades to come. He had a keen sense of the social forces transforming the planet for both good and ill—such as growing nationalism and populism, consumerism, and a one-sided view of technology he described as the “technocratic paradigm”—and a compelling vision of how the Church should respond to them in the light of the Gospel, expressed above all in his social encyclicals Laudato Si’ (2015) and Fratelli Tutti (2020). In his role as diplomat, he also shaped world events, advocating on behalf of migrants risking the waters of the Mediterranean, working for the signing of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, and intervening for peace in the war in Ukraine, among other initiatives. Massimo Faggioli, with a historian’s eye, has provided a survey of this legacy at Commonweal.

Despite this larger-than-life quality of Francis’s papacy, he also had the ability to touch individuals, to inspire people to love him, certainly, but also to make people feel loved by him. In part, as the editors of the National Catholic Reporter suggest in their editorial on Francis’s passing, this was due to his ability to communicate God’s love through gestures, what they call his “sacramental vision of life.” Appropriately, my first essay on Pope Francis, written the day after his election, was on precisely this ability, what I described as his capacity to teach using a “unity of deeds and words.” I argued that this approach is more likely to call forth a response in the listener than words alone; it is “performative” and not merely “informative,” to use the distinction made by Pope Benedict XVI in his 2007 encyclical Spe Salvi, which I highlighted in a commentary on that document just this past weekend.

Much has already been written in the past few hours on Pope Francis’s legacy, and much more will be written in the days and months ahead. I wrote a summary of what I considered the most important elements of Pope Francis’s legacy for theology and the Church two years ago, and I think that analysis stands up in hindsight. I would only add that we have a much more concrete idea of what the synodal Church envisioned by Francis might look like now that the Synod on Synodality gathered in Rome for two sessions in 2023 and 2024. Relatedly, the Lay Centre, a residential community for lay people in Rome either studying at one of the Roman universities or participating in various programs, has published a short essay highlighting all of the ways Pope Francis promoted the full participation of lay people in the mission of the Church.

(Photo: Bogdan Solomenco, CC BY-SA 4.0)

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Rather than repeat what’s already been said in the many encomiums to the pope, I thought it would be fitting to meditate on his last public words: his homily for the morning Mass on Easter and his Urbi et Orbi message given later in the day on Easter. Due to his health, Pope Francis did not attend the morning Mass on Easter, but his homily prepared for the occasion was read by Cardinal Angelo Comastri, who celebrated the Mass. Shortly after noon on Sunday, Francis appeared in St. Peter’s Square, where he blessed the crowd. Archbishop Diego Ravelli, the Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations, then read the Urbi et Orbi message composed by Francis.

Francis begins the Urbi et Orbi message by describing the hope of Easter: “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!” Like Pope Benedict in Spe Salvi, as I noted in the commentary referenced above, Francis explains that evil and suffering remain with us, but do not have the last word: “Evil has not disappeared from history; it will remain until the end, but it no longer has the upper hand; it no longer has power over those who accept the grace of this day.” He continues: “In the passion and death of Jesus, God has taken upon himself all the evil in this world and in his infinite mercy has defeated it.” This is the basis of our hope.

In Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict teaches that the Christian message “makes things happen and is life-changing” (#2), suggesting that hope is not simply a belief about the future but something transformative of the present. Similarly, Francis insists that “[H]ope is not an evasion, but a challenge; it does not delude, but empowers us.”

Intriguingly, Pope Francis adds that what hope empowers the faithful to do is to set out as “pilgrims of hope” on a journey together, accompanied by Jesus Christ. By describing hope as a journey, Francis here alludes to the well-known account of hope in Hebrews 11 (also cited by Pope Benedict), where the faithful are described as strangers seeking a homeland, akin to Abraham’s journey to the promised land (11:13-16). But here Francis also links his theme of hope to synodality, which he has also often described as “journeying together,” the participation of all the faithful in the mission of the Church. So, hope empowers us to take up that baptismal mission and to share our gifts with the world.