• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
Capuchin Father Roberto Pasolini, preacher of the papal household, shares his meditation with members of the Roman Curia during their Lenten retreat in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican March 11, 2025. (CNS screengrab/Vatican Media)

Death, even a pope’s, is a ‘beautiful passage,’ preacher tells Curia

March 11, 2025
By Justin McLellan
Catholic News Service
Filed Under: Feature, News, Vatican, World News

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Death, even that of a pope, should not be seen as a tragedy but as a transition filled with Christian hope, the preacher of the papal household told members of the Roman Curia.

“In these hours, we have all prayed for the Holy Father,” Capuchin Father Roberto Pasolini said during his fourth Lenten meditation offered for the Curia. “What the Holy Father is experiencing and is living through is not something bad, no matter how it ends. It is a beautiful passage.”

If the pope “remains with us a little longer, we will see many more beautiful things; otherwise, he will go to meet the Lord whom he has loved and served in this world,” said Father Pasolini.

Capuchin Father Roberto Pasolini, preacher of the papal household, shares his meditation with members of the Roman Curia during their Lenten retreat in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican March 11, 2025. (CNS screengrab/Vatican Media)

The Capuchin friar was leading the Lenten retreat for cardinals and senior officials of the Roman Curia in the Vatican audience hall March 9-14. The retreat’s theme, “The Hope of Eternal Life,” was chosen weeks before Pope Francis’ hospitalization.

The Vatican press office said Pope Francis was watching Father Pasolini’s talks by video, and the friar began his March 11 talk by greeting the pope and expressing his hope that the meditations on eternal life “would be further medicine” to help the pope heal.

The evening before Father Pasolini offered his reflection on death, the pope’s doctors said they had revised their prognosis in view of Pope Francis’ stability and improvement.

In his morning meditation March 11, Father Pasolini reflected on death not only as a physical reality but also as a spiritual condition caused by sin.

Drawing from the Book of Ezekiel, Father Pasolini spoke about the prophet’s vision of a valley of dry bones, which God commands to rise again through the power of his Spirit.

“Not everything is lost,” he said. “Even though it has tragically marked us, what we have called the first death has not destroyed that deep level where, beneath masks and appearances, we are waiting for that original breath, that breath that only God can give us and that can bring our life back to life.”

The biblical vision, he said, is not just about Israel’s exile but speaks to the experience of all believers who are need of renewal by God but may not know it. The prophets were thus entrusted, he said, with the task of “shaking from their torpor a people, us, who are struggling to realize this situation we are in,” namely spiritual death.

The challenge, Father Pasolini said, is that people — and even the church itself — often struggle to grasp their need for renewal.

“We spend most of our days thinking more about being mistaken than about being ‘dead,”’ he said. “We linger more on guilt than on the dead state our souls are in, and this is not only a problem for some of us, for individuals, it can also be a problem for us as a church.”

Father Pasolini said that for centuries, and perhaps still, the church has been “a place more concerned with error than with pain, a place more like a court of law than a field hospital.”

The preacher urged his listeners to embrace God’s will rather than try to control the uncertainties of life and death, reflecting on the words of the Our Father: “Thy will be done.”

“If we persevere, we will reach that threshold as Christ did — with fear, with tears, but also with the hope of crossing over into eternal life,” he said.

Read More Vatican News

Papal diplomats must always defend poor, religious freedom, pope says

Pope Leo’s core identity is Augustinian, say religious

Father Rupnik’s mosaics disappear from Vatican News

Serve the Holy See by striving for holiness, pope tells officials, staff

God’s love breaks down walls, opens borders, dispels hatred, pope says

Holy Spirit fosters unity, peace, justice, pope says at Pentecost vigil

Copyright © 2025 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Print Print

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Primary Sidebar

Justin McLellan

Click here to view all posts from this author

For the latest news delivered twice a week via email or text message, sign up to receive our free enewsletter.

| MOST POPULAR |

  • Religious sisters played role in pope’s formation in grade school, N.J. province discovers

  • With an Augustinian in chair of St. Peter, order sees growing interest in vocations

  • Communicate hope with gentleness

  • ‘The Ritual’ seeks to portray exorcism respectfully

  • Hundreds gather at Rebuilt Conference 2025 to ‘imagine what’s possible’ in parish ministry

| Latest Local News |

Franciscan Sister Francis Anita Rizzo, who served in Baltimore for 18 years, dies at 95

Hundreds gather at Rebuilt Conference 2025 to ‘imagine what’s possible’ in parish ministry

Radio Interview: Dominican sister at Mount de Sales shares faith journey from astrophysics to religious life

Mount de Sales Dominican sister shares journey after pursuing science, finding faith 

Words spell success for archdiocesan students

| Latest World News |

Parishes will pay $80 million in Buffalo Diocese’s $150 million bankruptcy settlement

Papal diplomats must always defend poor, religious freedom, pope says

On a day of ‘national tragedy,’ Austria mourns 9 victims of high school shooting

Fathers of the Church: The Greek (or Eastern) Fathers

In move called a ‘dark day’ for residents, N.Y. Senate passes assisted suicide law

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Parishes will pay $80 million in Buffalo Diocese’s $150 million bankruptcy settlement
  • Papal diplomats must always defend poor, religious freedom, pope says
  • Franciscan Sister Francis Anita Rizzo, who served in Baltimore for 18 years, dies at 95
  • ‘No tengan miedo de hacer lo que El Señor quiere para nosotros’
  • On a day of ‘national tragedy,’ Austria mourns 9 victims of high school shooting
  • Hundreds gather at Rebuilt Conference 2025 to ‘imagine what’s possible’ in parish ministry
  • Fathers of the Church: The Greek (or Eastern) Fathers
  • In move called a ‘dark day’ for residents, N.Y. Senate passes assisted suicide law
  • Pope Leo’s core identity is Augustinian, say religious

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

en Englishes Spanish
en en