Pope Leo XIV shares video message with Chicago ALS event in honor of his friend

CHICAGO (OSV News) — Pope Leo XIV Sept. 20 told those suffering with ALS and their families, who have been “given a very difficult burden to bear,” that he is praying for them.

In a video message to the annual ALS Walk for Life in Chicago, he said he mourns for those who have died from the disease and praised caregivers as well as researchers and all involved in fighting the neurodegenerative disorder.

The pontiff’s friend, fellow Augustinian Father Jim Halstead, is living with ALS. The Les Turner ALS Foundation is supporting him, the retired priest told Chicago’s WLS-TV, and he had asked the pope via email over the summer to address their event by video. Ordained in 1976, Father Halstead taught philosophy and religious studies at Vincentian-run DePaul University in Chicago for 40 years.

In his remarks, Pope Leo said, “Let me say something to you who are living with ALS: You have a special place in my thoughts and prayers.”

“You have been given a very difficult burden to bear. I wish it otherwise,” he said. “Your sufferings, however, offer you an opportunity to discover and affirm a profound truth: The quality of human life is not dependent on achievement. The quality of our lives is dependent on love. In your suffering, you can experience a depth of human love previously unknown.

“You can grow in gratefulness for all that has been given and for all the people who are caring for you now. You can develop a profound sense of the beauty of creation, of life in this world, and of the mystery of love.”

“I pray for you,” he added. “I pray that rather than being possessed by frustration or hopelessness or despair, you surrender yourself to the mystery of human existence, to the love of your caregivers, and to the embrace of the Divine One.”

The pope said the “care and compassion” that doctors, nurses, occupational, physical and speech therapists, social workers, and “most especially, friends and family” provide for “those living with ALS and other motor neuron diseases are an inspiration to me and to all people.”

“And finally, a word to those who mourn,” Pope Leo concluded. “After a time of caring for your loved ones with ALS, you now mourn their passing. You have not forgotten them. And, in fact, your love has been purified by your service and then by your mourning. You have learned and are every day entering more deeply into the most profound of mysteries — death is not the final word. Love conquers death. Love conquers death. Love conquers death.”

ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, is sometimes called Lou Gehrig’s disease after the baseball player who was diagnosed with it. It is a nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, leading to loss of muscle control, according to the Mayo Clinic.