By Luke Stocking, Interim Executive Director
Development and Peace ― Caritas Canada unites with the global Catholic community and all people of goodwill in mourning the death of Pope Francis.
While it is a time of great sorrow, we stand with open hearts full of thanksgiving. From coast, to coast, to coast, our staff and members in Canada contemplate the gift of the Holy Father’s life and ministry to the world as he enters the full embrace of God.
From the moment he greeted the world in his simple white cassock on March 13, 2013, we felt the resonance of his vision of the Church with the vision and mission of Development and Peace ― Caritas Canada.
Pope Francis clearly articulated the choice of his namesake in his encyclical, Laudato Si’:
“[Saint Francis] was particularly concerned for God’s creation and for the poor and outcast. He loved, and was deeply loved for his joy, his generous self-giving, his openheartedness. He was a mystic and a pilgrim who lived in simplicity and in wonderful harmony with God, with others, with nature and with himself. He shows us just how inseparable the bond is between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace.” (LS 10)
Today, we affirm that these words are also true of the first pope of his name.
Pope Francis: a call to closeness
Pope Francis constantly called us to be close to the poor and oppressed and express our care and concern for them. He was faithful to the end in his own witness, as evident, for example, in his near daily calls to the Church of the Holy Family in Gaza, right up to Holy Saturday. His Pastoral approach, always rooted in the dignity of the human person, transcended the efforts of those who wished to reduce him to a mere political ideology and at times created a “messiness” that many in the Church struggled with.
The call to closeness is not easy. A dream, some would say. Yet, Pope Francis called us to do just that in Fratelli Tutti:
“Let us dream, then, as a single human family, as fellow travelers sharing the same flesh, as children of the same earth, which is our common home, each of us bringing the richness of his or her beliefs and convictions, each of us with his or her own voice, brothers and sisters all.” (FT 8)
Pope Francis: inspiring our movement
Our own five-year theme, “Create Hope,” is born of this dream. The theme comes from Pope Francis’s message of to the 2021 World Meeting of Popular Movements. He told them, “You have the ability and the courage to create hope where there appears to be only waste and exclusion.”
The loss of the Holy Father comes at a time of great darkness, division, violence and death in our world. Yet we hold to the call of Pope Francis in his final Urbi et Orbi Easter message, his last to the world, “I would like us to renew our hope that peace is possible!” With these words, he then proceeded to name no fewer than 10 places in the world where Development and Peace ― Caritas Canada is standing with the victims of war and acting as a voice for peace: The Holy Land, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, the Sahel, and the Horn of Africa and Great Lakes Region. We invite Canadians in this Easter Season to respond to the Pope’s call and join us in our efforts.
Now that the pope is dead, it is tempting to raise the cry, “Santo Subito! Sainthood Now!” But this is not a cry that Pope Francis would affirm. He would echo the words of Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, who said, “Do not call me a saint. I do not want to be dismissed so easily.” We recall the times that he would tell the crowds who chanted his name to chant the name of Jesus instead. Indeed, the witness of his life should bring us closer to faith in the Risen Jesus, the Living God of Easter.
It is a Grace that Pope Francis has died as our Easter Celebration is beginning. We at Development and Peace ― Caritas Canada gladly receive and embrace the final words of his final blessing:
“In the Lord’s Paschal Mystery, death and life contended in a stupendous struggle, but the Lord now lives forever. He fills us with the certainty that we too are called to share in the life that knows no end, when the clash of arms and the rumble of death will be heard no more. Let us entrust ourselves to him, for he alone can make all things new!”
We offer our prayers for the repose of the soul of our beloved Holy Father, Pope Francis. May he now rest in the peace of the Risen Christ whom he served with humility and courage. We also pray for the Cardinal electors as they prepare to gather in conclave. May the Holy Spirit guide them to continue along the path Pope Francis has laid before us—walking together as the people of God, in service to the Gospel, and working tirelessly for a world where justice prevails, and the clash of arms and the rumble of death are heard no more.
