Disarmament and fraternity in Francis’s last smile

Francis was an excellent father to the Church. I call him that, by his first and only name, because he left in his will that it should be the inscription on his tomb: “Franciscus.”

Written in mid-2022, the text offers the “suffering that was present in the last part” of the pope’s life to “the Lord, for peace in the world and for fraternity among peoples.” One infers that, since then, his farewell had been on his mind.

It is coherent to feel puzzlement before a leader who phoned the parish priest of Gaza and who did not shy away from calling for disarmament and an end to war. In what he called the “globalization of indifference,” people came to consume the horrors of a violent nature without taking any action.

Certainly he was hit by the tsunamis of hate that have covered the human community in recent years. In that sense, I have never seen so much discord among Catholics. But that does not surprise me at all. After all, who is not lost?

Francis’s laughter will be greatly missed. His simple way of offering advice, and of teaching how to give advice. For him, a sermon should not run past eight minutes. What respect for others’ ears, and for their time! “A sense of humor is a certificate of sanity,” he argued.

One asks, with reasonable concern, how much the lessons of charity he taught have been learned, how much internalized. So that no frost burns the field of new Christians, the cardinals now have the job of choosing a pope who loves us.

A few days before he died, at the end of last year, my grandfather Jorge listened to Ravel with me. I dedicate this memory.

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