Why the death of Pope Francis brought me relief

To be honest, I felt relief when Pope Francis died. In contrast to Catholic teaching, this had not much to do with its regular claim that the entire war is unfair. Or his view that Ukraine should “have the courage to increase the white flag” in order to stop a more unsuccessful bloodshed, which is ironically (more or less) Donald Trump's view. Or his suggestion that Israel is guilty of genocide in the Gaza. Or his more view of illegal immigrants.

No. The cause was not about politics, but to the heart. So absurd, I had come to see the Holy Father as a love rival. My wife Carla, a pious Catholic, was affected with him. “How I love him!” She always said. “You just have to listen to him and he enters your heart … He wanted to be in contact with his herd and not put on a golden throne. He said:” Like a good shepherd, I want to be surrounded by the smell of my sheep. Fantastic Man? “How could I not?” Yes, “I hissed.

When Pope Francis visited Cesena Cesena in 2017, Carla was in her arms with the youngest of our six children, then two. When the Popemobil was over, the Pope reached down and put his left hand on Giuseppe's head. As if a miracle, a woman nearby recorded a photo that somehow held the moment, and she gave Carla a copy.

It has been three weeks since Jorge Bergoglio died, and Carla still bombard me with WhatsApp messages that contain links to examples of his immeasurity. This includes a short video of him that sits in his wheelchair and throws a tennis ball on a black and white border collie. Carla is clear, is still affected with him. But at least he's gone.

When we met in 1998, Carla, who was 13 years younger than me, was not a practicing Catholic. But shortly after we got to know each other, she became very fervently. This meant not only a regular mass, but also the actual pilgrimages in places such as Lourdes and Medjugorje and visits in Rita of Rimini, exactly the coast, which worked in a building that was a cross between a church and a doctor surgery. Rita was able to heal every illness by rubbing her hands until they were hot and then placed them on the relevant part of the body. The heat acted as the head of a divine healing power. Rita told me that Lou Reed from Velvet Underground, once one of my favorite gang of mine, had seen her several times for his bad liver, which would kill him at the age of 71. His last words were apparently: “Bring me to light.”

Carla insisted that I convert to Catholicism because we are two halves of the same apple and Protestants as I was beyond the pale. The ceremony took place in a tiny chapel, which hid a remote alley, as if it were somehow against the law. I had no concerns to leave the Anglican Church that has become so bland and believe in God, although it is difficult for me to worship him.

Fortunately, Carla no longer believes that the Virgin Mary has appeared in Medjugorje since 1981 and regularly with six children (now approaching) wherever they are (you live in America). It was the enormous amount of money that you collected who convinced you that it must be a powerful fraud.

I saw one of them once Vegetables Switch to the Trance mode “We have contact”. The only miracle I saw in Medjugorje was that you could still smoke in bars.

Finally, Carla also saw Rita von Rimini through, but not before naming one of our children after her.

In the kitchen she still communicates with a picture of Jesus that is bound to the fridge door and a picture of the Madonna next to the mirror over the sink. For the inexperienced eye, this may make them appear out of their rocker, but she is saner and funnier than most and an incredible mother. And I find it lovable.

Her attitude to the new Pope Leo XIV is just as good as everyone else: “He seems to be Francesco, but disguised as a conservative.” The way she would do, she likes his conversation about peace and building bridges. But like so many Italians, she is worried because he is a Americano.

There was a lot of Leo XIII, the Pope who inspired his choice of names, whose encyclical from 1891 was inspired Rerum Novarum is considered the first “social” encyclical. It confirmed the right to form unions and to maintain a livelihood. The atheistic liberal links, which loathes so many elements of Catholic teaching, spends a lot of time nowadays to press popes as ideological allies. So it has Leo XIII. Rejection of socialism and communism on the grounds that private property is sacred. It is also not mentioned its former encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris (1878), in which he describes “socialism, communism and nihilism” as a “evil confederation” of “collecting evilities”.

I won Carla something else. In April 2022, when Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru, Leo XIV said on local television that the war in Ukraine “a real Russian imperialist invasion … they commit crime against humanity”. Days later, Pope Francis told the Corriere della sera The “barking of NATO on the door of Russia” could have led to the invasion of Ukraine. “Which is right?” I asked. “The Pope is the Pope,” she replied.