Cardinals around the world are remembering Pope Francis not just as a pope, but as a pastor deeply connected to real life. Some also expressed their hopes for the next pope.
Pope Francis “came from a world where evangelization is the No. 1 topic, where for every hundred sheep, 99 went home, one stayed with the shepherd,” Polish Cardinal Grzegorz Rys of Lodz told journalists after celebrating Mass April 21 for the repose of Pope Francis’ soul in Lodz’s cathedral.
The cardinal said that in his line of evangelization, the Argentine pope gave the world “a lot of prophetic signs,” but what was for him the trademark of the pontificate was that Pope Francis “moved quickly from liturgy to life,” Cardinal Rys said.
“The liturgies that Pope Francis celebrated were very simple. He didn’t sing. He spoke rather quickly. He spoke for seven minutes, sometimes 10,” the cardinal said. But “his leap to life was instantaneous,” Cardinal Rys said, remembering the pontiff in everyday, business-as-usual situations.
“He often received guests in his private apartment,” said the Polish prelate, whom the pope made a cardinal in 2023
“One would sit at the table with him and that was it. He always waited at the door. … And he escorted everyone to the elevator.
“Sensitivity to such details to the very end, so that a person felt respected from beginning to end in this conversation,” was something he remembered.
The cardinal also recalled another meeting when “years ago” he brought a group of young deacons with him to Rome, and they met the pope at the general audience.
“He came up to us, called me out and said: ‘Well, now translate, I’ll speak to them.’ And he just said a seven-minute catechesis on the priesthood. And he even joked that the priesthood is a bit like being on an airplane. Basically, it’s a fairly safe means of transportation, but sometimes there is turbulence.”
Cardinal Rys recalled that those deacons were surprised that the pope “actually loves priests.”
“I then thought — how badly did someone hurt these guys, that he taught them such distance already. They haven’t yet entered the priesthood, and they were already afraid that the pope doesn’t like priests,” Cardinal Rys said April 21.
The pope “very much carried the priesthood in his heart … even as he spoke out sharply,” he said. But the harsh tone was not “against priests, only against clericalism,” Cardinal Rys said.
Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe, a British Dominican theologian whom the pope made a cardinal in December 2024, said that Pope Francis had a “profound desire to make everybody seem welcome,” adding that he had a “quite extraordinary” capacity to listen, The Tablet reported the cardinal saying.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster, England, said in an April 21 statement that “Pope Francis was called to priesthood through his experience of the mercy and compassion of God. This remained the core of his ministry, as Priest, Bishop and Pontiff. Only in understanding the love and mercy of God towards each one of us can we fashion societies and communities that bear the mark of the ‘kingdom of God.'”
The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, recalled a moment when he met the future pope for the first time in 2005 in Buenos Aires. A few months before that, then-Father Pizzaballa had been elected custos of the Holy Land and had to pay a visit to a community of Franciscans in the future pope’s archdiocese in Argentina.
In a video recorded April 21, Cardinal Pizzaballa said he was “a little bit nervous because I was blocked in the traffic” and was running late to the meeting with then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
He said once at the residence, he parked the car in a clumsy way — “very quickly and not very well, in the courtyard.”
“There was a priest … waiting for us (who) helped us to park. … And when we left the car and gave to this priest the keys of the car … in case someone need(ed) to move the other cars not to block them. And this priest … told me: ‘Calm down, Father. Don’t worry. I am the cardinal. I was waiting for you.”
The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, whom the pope made a cardinal in 2023, said that the Holy Land will remember Pope Francis as an ambassador of the people of the Gaza Strip.
“Gaza was a little bit (of) a symbol … one of the symbols of his pontificate. He was always close to the poor … against the war.”
Speaking from Jerusalem, Cardinal Pizzaballa said that Pope Francis was “called to see finally the face of God” as “we celebrate the resurrection, the triumph of life and love.”
Cardinal Nichols also commented on the fact that Pope Francis died on Easter Monday.
“I could only see in this the providence of God. The risen Lord visited his disciples after his Resurrection. And it just strikes me, he’s done the same here. He’s come to Pope Francis and said, ‘Right, home.’ And it fits. The Paschal candle, the symbol of the risen Christ, is burning brightly today. It’s almost as if the Lord wants to say to us, yes that’s true. There is a victory over death. And while our hearts are full of that, he takes this action of calling home a very precious servant,” the cardinal said, according to The Tablet.
For German Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich, it does not matter which continent the future pope comes from or which language he speaks. It is about a person who can connect and bring people together, Cardinal Marx said on an April 21 program on German ZDF television.
“We don’t need a manager, we need someone who can really express what is at the heart of the Christian faith worldwide,” said the German cardinal.
Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne said on another German TV channel, WDR, that the new pope must provide guidance to the faithful.
The archbishop of Cologne recalled that Francis had always stood by the side of the poor and the weak. That is why it is important that the new pope also has a heart for people — he must “continue what Francis started and he must give the church some orientation and stability.”
Cardinal Woelki emphasised that the obligation for a cardinal is not to vote politically during the upcoming conclave, “but to vote for the person he considers to be the best and most suitable candidate before the face of God,” he said.
Asked about the conclave, Cardinal Rys said: “I will pray for the Holy Spirit. This is an unheard of responsibility. I have been a cardinal for barely two years. … This is no seniority at all. … I am a man who is there to learn. … So when I come back, I will tell you, if you ask me.”
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