After he emerged from the Gemelli hospital in Rome last month, Pope Francis put out a reflection on ‘hospital’. Some of it was the usual, about how it’s where like meets unlike (‘In intensive care you see a Jew taking care of a racist’ etc). Some was standard homely Francis: ‘This life will pass quickly, so do not waste it fighting with people… Do not worry too much about keeping the house spotless.’ He ended: ‘Love more, forgive more, embrace more… And leave the rest in the hands of the Creator.’
That was the disconcerting thing about Francis. Everything eventually boiled down to the love of God. It’s why even sound criticism of him somehow misses the mark. Because although he was wrong in lots of ways (his brusque treatment of traditionalist Catholics), inept in others (his dealings with the CCP), often unpopish (he could be potty-mouthed in public), and plain annoying in the way he dismissed the trappings of the role, which were never meant to be about him anyway, he kept turning back to the heart of the thing: Jesus Christ.
It showed in the way he gravitated to the unassuming, to children, to migrants, to poor people. I’m sure he was happy to see the King and J.D. Vance last week, but he was perhaps more moved when he visited the Regina Coeli prison in Rome, where the inmates grasped his hand and kneeled. I saw him in the United Arab Emirates, where the Sheikh led him by the hand into the great stadium and he made a historic address (it was, said one scholar of Islam, pitch-perfect).
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