The Death of a Pope
Reflections after the death of Pope Francis
It was a slow Easter Monday morning in Rome. The city was quiet after the beautifully intense Easter Triduum liturgies and the joyful, spritz-filled celebrations of Easter Sunday. I was making coffee at home when I saw the BBC alert on my phone: Pope Francis had died.
I said a quick prayer and immediately knew there was only one place I wanted to be: St. Peter’s Square.
I live a twenty-minute walk from the Vatican, and when I arrived, the square was still mostly empty. Pilgrims and tourists were slowly making their way through the long line to enter the basilica. Nothing official had begun, and I’m sure many people there still hadn’t heard the news. Little by little, though, people began to trickle into the square to pray.
Gradually, the scene began to shift. More people entered. Journalists arrived and began interviewing those who had gathered. A few cameras were set up. The gravity of what had just happened and what was about to unfold began to settle in.
At noon, the death bells began to ring. From where I stood, I could see the large bell of St. Peter’s Basilica swinging. Unlike the usual mechanical rhythm, it was being rung by hand. A single person in the bell tower pushed the massive clapper back and forth, one solemn strike for each of the 88 years of Pope Francis’s life.
As I stood there watching, I began to realize that this spot, St. Peter’s Square, was about to become the center of the world’s attention. For the next several weeks, the eyes of the Church and the world would be fixed here. And I would have a front row seat.
The Funeral
On the morning of Pope Francis’s funeral, I arrived at St. Peter’s Square well before dawn. I wanted to be sure I had a good view, and I knew the square would fill up quickly. I arrived a little before 6:00 a.m., but I knew people had camped out since at least 4:30 a.m. They started letting people through security right at 6:00 a.m., and by sheer luck, I managed to be standing in an opportune spot to go through a smaller, unnoticed security checkpoint and beat the main crowds into the square. I was mentally prepared to stand in the square for the next several hours, but I couldn’t believe my luck when I was able to grab one of the few remaining chairs available to the general public.
As the sun slowly rose over the basilica, the square began to fill with pilgrims, priests, religious sisters, seminarians, press, diplomats, and ordinary Catholics from around the world. By the time the funeral Mass began, more than a quarter of a million people were packed into the square and surrounding streets. It was deeply moving to be part of that crowd, with people from every continent, speaking every language, brought together by the death of one man. It was a quiet reminder that, for all its divisions and differences, the Catholic Church remains the one place on earth that can still bring the whole world together.
That morning, I couldn’t help but think about what that place has seen. The Roman emperor Nero had crucified St. Peter on that very hill. Now, centuries later, kings, presidents, and pilgrims from every corner of the globe were gathered for the Requiem Mass of Peter’s 266th successor. Empires rise and fall, I thought, but Christ’s one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church remains.
Two moments from the funeral stand out most in my memory.
The first was the Litany of the Saints. As dozens of saints were invoked by name to pray for Pope Francis, the entire square responded in unison. Pilgrims prayed alongside world leaders and the College of Cardinals. It is one of the central prayers of the Church’s most solemn liturgies, used in ordinations, canonizations, and the Easter Vigil. In that moment, it felt as if the Church was reaching across time, linking the living and the dead, the powerful and the hidden, all united in prayer for one soul.
The second moment that struck me most came near the end of the Mass, when representatives from the Eastern Catholic Churches gathered around the Pope’s coffin and began to chant. The sound was unfamiliar to many in the square. Ancient, haunting, and beautiful. It was a moment that captured something essential about the Catholic Church. It reminded me that the Church is not just Roman. It is made up of many rites and many voices, each rooted in traditions that stretch back centuries. That chant, rising from the heart of St. Peter’s Square, was a small but powerful sign of the Church’s true universality.
Reflections on Pope Francis’s Pontificate
Over the past two weeks, a few moments from Pope Francis’s pontificate have been most clearly on my mind. These moments have shaped my memory of who he was as a pope and what kind of Church he tried to lead.
Visit to the United States
I first saw Pope Francis in person during his apostolic visit to the United States in 2015. At the time, I was living in Washington, D.C., working on Capitol Hill, and still in the early stages of becoming Catholic. I was in RCIA, learning, discerning, and slowly falling in love with the Catholic faith.
When I found out he would be addressing a joint session of Congress, I was determined to be there, even if I couldn’t get inside. Each member of Congress only had a handful of tickets to give out, and despite my best efforts, I couldn’t get my hands on one. So, like thousands of others, I showed up before dawn and stood on the lawn of the Capitol, where they had set up large screens to show his speech. When it was over, Pope Francis walked out onto the Speaker’s Balcony and greeted the crowd.
That moment left a deep mark on me. There he was, flanked by then–Vice President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House John Boehner, standing at the seat of American politics. And yet, even in that setting, he wasn’t just another political figure. He carried something older, something weightier. Until that moment, the U.S. Capitol had been the center of my world. Ever since my college internship in D.C., everything in my life had revolved around that building and American politics. But standing there that morning, I realized something had shifted. The axis of my attention was moving: from Washington to Rome, from political power to spiritual authority, from the U.S. Capitol to the Chair of St. Peter. My center of gravity was shifting under my feet.
That moment didn’t convert me, but it became one of the quiet turning points. One of the markers I look back on and recognize as part of the long arc of my conversion.
Visit to Iraq
One of the most powerful moments of Pope Francis’s pontificate came during his visit to Iraq in 2021. Years earlier, ISIS had declared its intent to conquer Rome and behead the Pope. They saw him as a symbol of everything they hated: Christianity, peace, the West, and the Church itself.
And yet, there was Pope Francis in Mosul, standing in the ruins of a church that ISIS had destroyed.
It was profoundly moving to see him there. In the years since, reports have revealed that there were credible threats against his life during the visit. His security team couldn’t fully guarantee his safety. But he went anyway.
That decision was quietly defiant. He went to pray with both Christians and Muslims. He stood in a place devastated by evil and chose to respond not with fear but with hope, not with revenge but with the quiet witness of faith.
It was a simple act, but one that said everything. The Church does not run from the darkness. The successor of Peter had come to stand with the people who had suffered at the hands of evil.
To me, that moment was a visible sign of good confronting evil, not with force, but with love. His very presence in that place was a quiet act of defiance and a powerful act of hope. It said to the world: we do not give in to fear. We show up. We pray. We stand with those who suffer. And we believe that even in the ruins, Christ is still present.
Urbi et Orbi Blessing During the Pandemic
The third moment I keep returning to is the night Pope Francis gave the Urbi et Orbi blessing during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The world was locked down. Cities were quiet. Streets were empty. No one really knew what was coming next. And then, one night, the Pope stepped out alone into a dark, rainy, and silent St. Peter’s Square.
There were no crowds. No long procession. Just silence, rain, and prayer.
He offered a beautiful homily and led Eucharistic adoration. Then he lifted the monstrance and blessed the city and the world with the Eucharistic Lord.
There is one image from that moment that has stayed with me ever since. As he raised the monstrance to bless the world, his face disappeared beneath the folds of his cope. You couldn’t see him at all, only the face of Christ in the Eucharist.
That moment, to me, was a quiet icon of the Church at its best. The Pope wasn’t drawing attention to himself. He wasn’t performing. He was simply there, holding Christ before the world. In that moment, it wasn’t the Vicar of Christ blessing the world. It was Christ himself.
The whole scene has remained with me in a hauntingly beautiful way. The rain. The silence. The empty square. The crucifix. The Eucharist. It was one of the loneliest images of the papacy, and yet also one of the most hopeful. In the midst of global fear and isolation, he offered what only the Church can offer: the presence of Jesus.
The Eve of the Conclave
These are just a few of the moments I’ve been thinking about over the past two weeks since Pope Francis died. His legacy will be examined and debated for years to come, and no single reflection can capture the full scope of his papacy. But these are the memories that remain with me. These are the moments when he helped shape my own life of faith.
Pope Francis is the only pope I’ve known since becoming Catholic. His voice, his image, and his priorities have marked every year of my life in the Church so far. When I served as a diplomat for the Holy See, I had the honor and responsibility of advocating on his behalf on the international stage. While I didn’t always agree with every decision or prioritization, I never doubted his heart for the world or his desire to bring people closer to Christ.
As I write this, the Church holds its breath on the eve of the conclave. Tomorrow, the College of Cardinals will lock themselves in the Sistine Chapel and begin the process of choosing the 267th successor of St. Peter.
Once again, St. Peter’s Square will draw the world’s attention, as every eye turns toward the small, recently installed chimney, waiting for white smoke and the chance to catch our first glimpse of the new Bishop of Rome. And once again, I will have a front row seat.
I’m praying that the Cardinals will be attentive to the Holy Spirit and that the next pope will be led by the Sacred Heart of Jesus, chosen as a shepherd for this moment in history to be a source of hope, unity, and truth for the world.