Pope Francis had barely been dead for twelve hours when Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene took to social media for a bizarre celebration of his passing.
You spoke my heart on the Pope and the contrast. As a pastor who knows the underbelly in the church and as one who has been at the Vatican and recognized it reeks of power, Pope Francis’ life is all the more remarkable and his faith a true grace and miracle of heaven! I will miss him greatly.
I always thought the term “princes of the church,” to describe cardinals was an oxymoron. Power in any group, large or small, always corrupts. Jesus knew this, and so did Pope Francis. Francis tried to live according to Micah 6:8–to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. MAGA people who are denigrating Pope Francis on his death are trying to drag us back to a time of religious warfare, which made society unstable.
Pope Francis did not hesitate to speak truth to power. I am grateful that he corrected JD Vance on his misconception of the command to love your neighbor. Reiterated in Jesus’s last command “As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this they will know that you are my disciples.” I wonder if this came up in their last meeting.
Yes yes and yet again yes. We don't have to meet some imagined state of 'perfection' wherein we never slip, slide or make poor choices. We just need to try, to stand up for noble values, for love, for compassion, for that wisdom Jesus abided in, and tried to teach us. Francis was a light unto the nations who somehow managed to shine within the constraints of an infamously rigid, and top-heavy institution that often made one wonder what Jesus would have thought of it.
Marjorie Taylor-Greene's spiteful and hate-filled reaction to the death of Pope Francis mirrors exactly my experience growing up within evangelical Christianity (Reformed Baptist), and how people at the church I attended as a child literally REJOICED when Pope John XXIII passed 62 years ago.
Never mind that Pope John XXIII brought the Catholic Church into the 20th century; never mind that Pope John XXIII made the then-startling pronouncements that Protestants were indeed Christians; and the "the Jews" were NOT collectively responsible for the death of Jesus. The people at the church I attended literally CHEERED the death of the Pope on the Sunday following his death.
It wasn't just the Pope: the people at my church, along with other evangelical Christians, picketed the house of a Jewish man who was running for mayor of the city where I lived (didn't work: he won the election). They picketed and cat-called the woman who became the first mayor of our city (our minister referred to her as a "Jezebel harlot" and quoting that famous canard from 1 Timothy 2:11-15). In the early 1960s, these same people went down to Woolworth's where black people were sitting, at the counter, ordering lunch and tried to physically drag the black people out of the store. (My paternal grandmother, a lifelong progressive who was Unitarian-Universalist (much to my parents' dismay!), took me down to Woolworth's where we personally watched this happen; and I recognized members from the church I attended.) When a black family entered our church on a Wednesday evening in January, 1968, the ushers swarmed them and literally carried them back outside.
What Marjorie Taylor-Greene did was exactly according to the evangelical Christian playbook.
Pope Francis, like Jimmy Carter, were walking, talking SAINTS wearing human flesh. I've worked interactively with my home parish, our diocese, and the Roman Catholic diocese to help implement "Laudato si". I'm very much Anglo-Catholic, and I regained enormous respect for the Roman Catholic Church because of the initiatives of Pope Francis.
I have to be perfectly honest: Christ tells us to show love to everyone, even our enemies; but I have to work -- REALLY work, to get up to "being civil" to evangelical Christians. I'm Anglo-Catholic, and the word "Protestant" has become a dirty word for me; and "evangelical" is a full-on CUSS WORD!
"Christians" such as you've described and witnessed make my skin crawl. I literally have a sickened, stomach-churning response. I've seen too much of their hatefulness during my many decades in this life.
Yes, Pope Francis was saintly and actually lived and interacted with all as Jesus would have done. He didn't do so for kudos, reverence and adoration. He did so humbly, because it was right. No, he wasn't perfect, but for a man of his background he was remarkably progressive, tolerant and inclusive. I feel his loss keenly.
Well said. There truly is little of the message of Jesus in MAGAs brand of Evangelical Christianity. And it’s pretty difficult to reason with the unreasonable and thoughtless.
Despite my current status as a CINO (Catholic in name only), I have always adored Pope Frank. People accused me of being sacrilegious for calling him that, but I think that he would have understood that it was meant as a compliment. He was the people's pope after all. He walked among us, and treated everyone as Jesus would have. He was progressive and brought many church practices into this millennium, while being conservative enough to preserve other parts of the religion as he saw fit. He was a breath of fresh air for the Catholic Church, whether you liked him or not. I have seen every pope in power since 1952 (Pius XII), followed by John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. Pope Frank was the best of them, with John Paul II and John XXIII close behind.
I went to Rome in September of 2023, but never got a glimpse of Pope Frank in my few days there. Though that was a disappointment, I have something from him that means the world to me...hanging on the wall of my office...a Papal Blessing from Pope Frank regarding a book I wrote and published in 2014.
I am in the process of rebranding that book (new cover, new publisher, somewhat updated) in the hope that doing such a thing will bring it to the attention of those who need it, rather than having it languishing in obscurity on Amazon. I think Pope Frank would have liked that, knowing a wider audience would mean helping more people. Rest in Peace, Pope Frank!
Thank you for this beautiful memorial piece on the Holy Father. Pope Francis lived the Gospel message of Matthew 25. His papacy was a true reflection of God’s mercy and love. May he RIP and watch over all of us.
Amen to that. Frances was striving to be Christlike and that should be the goal of all Christians, but as you so correctly point out way too many are striving to be more powerful, more cruel, more exclusionary exhibiting no humility just arrogance. To rejoice that a humble man who loved the poor, the immigrant and refugee has left us, is reflecting upon the speaker not the humble man who just died. Yes, the views of such as MTG are tables Jesus would turn over. I have often said if Jesus walked into these folks churches, he would be escorted out as undesirable. I have lived through numerous popes and Frances is the one I have felt was the best. While he left areas untouched that I might have wished he would have worked on, his life will be remembered for the good he did more than what he left undone. Thank you for you remembrance.
In the fifth grade, 1965, my teacher asked us to write an essay naming who we could silence if we had magical powers.
Amongst other silly answers, I wrote that all politicians who wanted to start wars. She was impressed and asked me to read aloud in class, which is probably why I remember this.
So now, at 69, it makes sense to me why I cannot fathom why people in this current administration exist. It's like they are characters of evil that couldn't possibly exist, a figment of my imagination.
While I choose to not condemn Marjorie Taylor Greene and the MAGA family, I will say we evidently don’t believe in the same Bible nor the same Jesus. So many among us reflect the standards of the world we live in, more than the Kingdom of God.
If we want to “ Make America Great Again”, we need to model the Kingdom of God as reflected in the birth, life, ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus; sacrificial love for ALL. We are a resurrection people, here and now as well as eternally. We need to surrender our self destructive ways and become a resurrection people. That is the biblical story from cover to cover. Thanks be to the Holy Trinity. Don Storey
Ever since Francis was elected to the papacy, I have watched him and his actions from outside the walls of the Vatican. We often had impromptu conversations about the possibly conflicting views of two theologians who were, for their times, almost polar opposites, except not. Martin Luther might have taken offense at the continuation of indulgences and the accompanying raping of his century's humanity by the RC powers, and we looked for, and found, some of the similar demands for structural changes in that same church under Francis. As for reaching the pinnacle of Christ's messages, we concluded that that goal was likely an impossibility, but that it was our duty and our work to emulate Christ's teachings through the works of both Luther and Francis. Always moving upward, regardless of the realities of a Sysiphean challenge. God's Work, Our Hands: dig in!
You spoke my heart on the Pope and the contrast. As a pastor who knows the underbelly in the church and as one who has been at the Vatican and recognized it reeks of power, Pope Francis’ life is all the more remarkable and his faith a true grace and miracle of heaven! I will miss him greatly.
I always thought the term “princes of the church,” to describe cardinals was an oxymoron. Power in any group, large or small, always corrupts. Jesus knew this, and so did Pope Francis. Francis tried to live according to Micah 6:8–to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. MAGA people who are denigrating Pope Francis on his death are trying to drag us back to a time of religious warfare, which made society unstable.
Pope Francis did not hesitate to speak truth to power. I am grateful that he corrected JD Vance on his misconception of the command to love your neighbor. Reiterated in Jesus’s last command “As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this they will know that you are my disciples.” I wonder if this came up in their last meeting.
Yes yes and yet again yes. We don't have to meet some imagined state of 'perfection' wherein we never slip, slide or make poor choices. We just need to try, to stand up for noble values, for love, for compassion, for that wisdom Jesus abided in, and tried to teach us. Francis was a light unto the nations who somehow managed to shine within the constraints of an infamously rigid, and top-heavy institution that often made one wonder what Jesus would have thought of it.
Marjorie Taylor-Greene's spiteful and hate-filled reaction to the death of Pope Francis mirrors exactly my experience growing up within evangelical Christianity (Reformed Baptist), and how people at the church I attended as a child literally REJOICED when Pope John XXIII passed 62 years ago.
Never mind that Pope John XXIII brought the Catholic Church into the 20th century; never mind that Pope John XXIII made the then-startling pronouncements that Protestants were indeed Christians; and the "the Jews" were NOT collectively responsible for the death of Jesus. The people at the church I attended literally CHEERED the death of the Pope on the Sunday following his death.
It wasn't just the Pope: the people at my church, along with other evangelical Christians, picketed the house of a Jewish man who was running for mayor of the city where I lived (didn't work: he won the election). They picketed and cat-called the woman who became the first mayor of our city (our minister referred to her as a "Jezebel harlot" and quoting that famous canard from 1 Timothy 2:11-15). In the early 1960s, these same people went down to Woolworth's where black people were sitting, at the counter, ordering lunch and tried to physically drag the black people out of the store. (My paternal grandmother, a lifelong progressive who was Unitarian-Universalist (much to my parents' dismay!), took me down to Woolworth's where we personally watched this happen; and I recognized members from the church I attended.) When a black family entered our church on a Wednesday evening in January, 1968, the ushers swarmed them and literally carried them back outside.
What Marjorie Taylor-Greene did was exactly according to the evangelical Christian playbook.
Pope Francis, like Jimmy Carter, were walking, talking SAINTS wearing human flesh. I've worked interactively with my home parish, our diocese, and the Roman Catholic diocese to help implement "Laudato si". I'm very much Anglo-Catholic, and I regained enormous respect for the Roman Catholic Church because of the initiatives of Pope Francis.
I have to be perfectly honest: Christ tells us to show love to everyone, even our enemies; but I have to work -- REALLY work, to get up to "being civil" to evangelical Christians. I'm Anglo-Catholic, and the word "Protestant" has become a dirty word for me; and "evangelical" is a full-on CUSS WORD!
"Christians" such as you've described and witnessed make my skin crawl. I literally have a sickened, stomach-churning response. I've seen too much of their hatefulness during my many decades in this life.
Yes, Pope Francis was saintly and actually lived and interacted with all as Jesus would have done. He didn't do so for kudos, reverence and adoration. He did so humbly, because it was right. No, he wasn't perfect, but for a man of his background he was remarkably progressive, tolerant and inclusive. I feel his loss keenly.
Well said. There truly is little of the message of Jesus in MAGAs brand of Evangelical Christianity. And it’s pretty difficult to reason with the unreasonable and thoughtless.
Humility and humanity. These were in abundance in Pope Francis. They are sorely lacking in MAGA souls.
Thank you John for writing how I was feeling about Magachristians and their “Horned” leader in the White House.
Despite my current status as a CINO (Catholic in name only), I have always adored Pope Frank. People accused me of being sacrilegious for calling him that, but I think that he would have understood that it was meant as a compliment. He was the people's pope after all. He walked among us, and treated everyone as Jesus would have. He was progressive and brought many church practices into this millennium, while being conservative enough to preserve other parts of the religion as he saw fit. He was a breath of fresh air for the Catholic Church, whether you liked him or not. I have seen every pope in power since 1952 (Pius XII), followed by John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. Pope Frank was the best of them, with John Paul II and John XXIII close behind.
I went to Rome in September of 2023, but never got a glimpse of Pope Frank in my few days there. Though that was a disappointment, I have something from him that means the world to me...hanging on the wall of my office...a Papal Blessing from Pope Frank regarding a book I wrote and published in 2014.
I am in the process of rebranding that book (new cover, new publisher, somewhat updated) in the hope that doing such a thing will bring it to the attention of those who need it, rather than having it languishing in obscurity on Amazon. I think Pope Frank would have liked that, knowing a wider audience would mean helping more people. Rest in Peace, Pope Frank!
I share your same assessments of the popes, the three you mentioned were the ones I loved most.
Thank you for this beautiful memorial piece on the Holy Father. Pope Francis lived the Gospel message of Matthew 25. His papacy was a true reflection of God’s mercy and love. May he RIP and watch over all of us.
The world has suffered a tremendous loss with the Pope's passing.
Thank you, brother John, I'm so pleased to read your uplifting message regarding the Pope Francis 🙏 and will reStack ASAP 💯👍
Amen to that. Frances was striving to be Christlike and that should be the goal of all Christians, but as you so correctly point out way too many are striving to be more powerful, more cruel, more exclusionary exhibiting no humility just arrogance. To rejoice that a humble man who loved the poor, the immigrant and refugee has left us, is reflecting upon the speaker not the humble man who just died. Yes, the views of such as MTG are tables Jesus would turn over. I have often said if Jesus walked into these folks churches, he would be escorted out as undesirable. I have lived through numerous popes and Frances is the one I have felt was the best. While he left areas untouched that I might have wished he would have worked on, his life will be remembered for the good he did more than what he left undone. Thank you for you remembrance.
Thank you. You express beautifully what I’m going to try to say when write my comment.
Beautifully said.
In the fifth grade, 1965, my teacher asked us to write an essay naming who we could silence if we had magical powers.
Amongst other silly answers, I wrote that all politicians who wanted to start wars. She was impressed and asked me to read aloud in class, which is probably why I remember this.
So now, at 69, it makes sense to me why I cannot fathom why people in this current administration exist. It's like they are characters of evil that couldn't possibly exist, a figment of my imagination.
Unfortunately, they are real.
While I choose to not condemn Marjorie Taylor Greene and the MAGA family, I will say we evidently don’t believe in the same Bible nor the same Jesus. So many among us reflect the standards of the world we live in, more than the Kingdom of God.
If we want to “ Make America Great Again”, we need to model the Kingdom of God as reflected in the birth, life, ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus; sacrificial love for ALL. We are a resurrection people, here and now as well as eternally. We need to surrender our self destructive ways and become a resurrection people. That is the biblical story from cover to cover. Thanks be to the Holy Trinity. Don Storey
An aside: 6 in 10 white, American Catholics voted for Trump. The Evangelicals alone haven’t cornered the market on MAGA.
I have a Catholic friend who voted for Trump. It isn't saying much for either her or her church.
Yikes! Not this one!
Ever since Francis was elected to the papacy, I have watched him and his actions from outside the walls of the Vatican. We often had impromptu conversations about the possibly conflicting views of two theologians who were, for their times, almost polar opposites, except not. Martin Luther might have taken offense at the continuation of indulgences and the accompanying raping of his century's humanity by the RC powers, and we looked for, and found, some of the similar demands for structural changes in that same church under Francis. As for reaching the pinnacle of Christ's messages, we concluded that that goal was likely an impossibility, but that it was our duty and our work to emulate Christ's teachings through the works of both Luther and Francis. Always moving upward, regardless of the realities of a Sysiphean challenge. God's Work, Our Hands: dig in!