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Thursday, May 8, 2025

Global tributes pour in to honor Pope Francis after his death

by

Newsdesk
17 days ago
20250421
A faithful holds a portrait of late Pope Francis at the Basílica de San José de Flores, where he worshipped as a youth, following the Vatican's announcement of his death in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)

A faithful holds a portrait of late Pope Francis at the Basílica de San José de Flores, where he worshipped as a youth, following the Vatican's announcement of his death in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Monday, April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)

Gustavo Garello

Trib­utes to Pope Fran­cis in­stant­ly poured in from around the world from pres­i­dents to peo­ple of all walks of like on Mon­day af­ter the Vat­i­can an­nounced the pon­tiff’s death at age 88.

Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron of France, a coun­try that is large­ly Ro­man Catholic, fo­cused on the pope’s im­pact on the church, writ­ing on X that “From Buenos Aires to Rome, Pope Fran­cis want­ed the Church to bring joy and hope to the poor­est. For it to unite hu­mans among them­selves, and with na­ture. May this hope for­ev­er out­last him.”

U.S. Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance, who on East­er Sun­day met with the pope be­fore trav­el­ing on to In­dia, wrote on X on Mon­day that his “heart goes out” to the mil­lions of Chris­tians who loved him, and said: “I was hap­py to see him yes­ter­day, though he was ob­vi­ous­ly very ill.”

Ital­ian Pre­mier Gior­gia Mel­oni, who was one of the few of­fi­cial vis­i­tors to see Fran­cis dur­ing his re­cent hos­pi­tal­iza­tion, al­lud­ed to the pope’s per­son­al com­fort and ad­vice for her, say­ing “I had the priv­i­lege of en­joy­ing his friend­ship, his coun­sel and his teach­ings, which nev­er failed me, not even in times of tri­al and suf­fer­ing.”

Fran­cis’ death, she said, “deeply sad­dens us, as we are say­ing good­bye to a great man and a great shep­herd.”

Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion Pres­i­dent Ur­su­la von der Leyen re­called the pon­tiff as an in­spi­ra­tion for the en­tire world, not just Chris­tians.

“He in­spired mil­lions, far be­yond the Catholic Church, with his hu­mil­i­ty and love so pure for the less for­tu­nate,” she tweet­ed. “My thoughts are with all who feel this pro­found loss. May they find so­lace in the idea that Pope Fran­cis’ lega­cy will con­tin­ue to guide us all to­ward a more just, peace­ful and com­pas­sion­ate world.”

As crowds flocked to St. Pe­ter’s Square, well-wish­ers world­wide laid flow­ers at church­es — many of whose bells tolled in hon­or of Fran­cis, in­clud­ing at the re­cent­ly re­opened Notre Dame Cathe­dral in Paris.

Is­raeli Pres­i­dent Is­sac Her­zog, whose role is most­ly cer­e­mo­ni­al, of­fered con­do­lences and called Fran­cis a man of “deep faith and bound­less com­pas­sion.”

“I tru­ly hope that his prayers for peace in the Mid­dle East and for the safe re­turn of the hostages will soon be an­swered,” Her­zog post­ed on X, re­fer­ring to the pope’s re­peat­ed calls for an end to the war and the re­lease of cap­tives held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Fran­cis had re­peat­ed­ly crit­i­cized Is­rael’s wartime con­duct and said al­le­ga­tions of geno­cide, which Is­rael has adamant­ly de­nied, should be in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

On so­cial me­dia, Span­ish Prime Min­is­ter Pe­dro Sánchez hailed Fran­cis for fo­cus­ing on the world’s most vul­ner­a­ble; Pol­ish Prime Min­is­ter Don­ald Tusk post­ed a pho­to of him­self on X with the pope, both smil­ing, and called Fran­cis a “kind, warm and com­pas­sion­ate per­son;” Dutch Prime Min­is­ter Dick Schoof said that Fran­cis ”was in every way a man of the peo­ple.”

Egypt­ian Pres­i­dent Ab­del Fat­tah el-Sis­si said in a state­ment that Fran­cis leaves be­hind “a great hu­man lega­cy that will re­main etched in the con­science of hu­man­i­ty” and called him “an ex­cep­tion­al glob­al fig­ure who ded­i­cat­ed his life to serv­ing the val­ues of peace and jus­tice.”

Irish For­eign Min­is­ter Si­mon Har­ris praised Fran­cis’ ad­vo­ca­cy for the poor, and calls for im­proved in­ter­faith re­la­tions and a fo­cus on pro­tect­ing the en­vi­ron­ment that made him “a bea­con of hope and a voice for the voice­less.”

But some crit­ics voiced frus­tra­tion, with the Women’s Or­di­na­tion Con­fer­ence lament­ing Fran­cis’ un­will­ing­ness to push for the or­di­na­tion of women.

“His re­peat­ed ‘closed door’ pol­i­cy on women’s or­di­na­tion was painful­ly in­con­gru­ous with his oth­er­wise pas­toral na­ture, and for many, a be­tray­al of the syn­odal, lis­ten­ing church he cham­pi­oned,” the con­fer­ence said. “This made him a com­pli­cat­ed, frus­trat­ing, and some­times heart-break­ing fig­ure for many women.”

The Vat­i­can an­nounced that Fran­cis, the 266th pope, died Mon­day morn­ing — a day af­ter his last pub­lic ap­pear­ance on East­er Sun­day to bless thou­sands of peo­ple in St. Pe­ter’s Square.

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