After 12 years of serving, Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, has died. The 88-year-old Argentinian-born leader of the Roman Catholic Church battled pneumonia weeks ago before a brief recovery and return to the Vatican. Vice President J.D. Vance met with the Pope on Easter Sunday just hours before his death.
Francis suffered a cerebral stroke early Monday morning before falling into a coma and suffering heart failure that resulted in his death, according to AP News.
Francis, the first Latin American pope, underlined his time in the Vatican with a progressive perspective on Roman Catholic values and reform. For the Catholic community at the University of Iowa, Francis’ life, papal practices, and death represent a stark part of the papacy’s continuity and a time for prayer.
“It came all as a shock to me,” UI first-year student Rylande Stewart said.
Stewart is a frequent attendant of the Newman Catholic Student Center on campus, who also serves as an altar server and a lecturer for programs at the center.
When it came to Francis’ beliefs, Stewart said he feels mostly positive but has some mixed opinions, saying he appreciated how “reformed” they were.
“I enjoyed a lot of them,” he said. “There were some of them that I was against, but altogether, I like his reforms on abuse in the church, his reforms on climate change, women having more roles in the church.”
Stewart said, however, he disapproved of Francis’ approval of women as deacons, citing it as incongruous with how Jesus intended the Catholic Church to function.
The next pope will be decided by the conclave in the Vatican, and Stewart said his hope is for a more traditional Catholic leader than what Francis represented.
“Personally, I want to say it might go to traditional,” Stewart said. “I hope it would go to a traditional Trad Catholic, because I would love to see more traditional roles, like traditional things in our church, like when we take communion, I want to see more people taking it by mouth instead of taking it by hand.”
Another student, fourth-year Avery Nelson, who also spends her time in the halls of the Newman Student Center, said the loss was startling but added his death should remind Catholics of the fallibility of all people — even the pope.
“I think a lot of times when death is spoken about, there’s the assumption of, I want to go to heaven,” she said. “What I’ve seen in our community here is to pray for him, and that’s just been really cool to be like, yeah, he’s the pope. We assume he’s a very holy man. And it’d be pretty surprising if he didn’t go to heaven. I don’t want to assume that, and I really want to pray for his soul, that he may be united with God.”
For the next papacy, Nelson said she hopes truth is a priority, especially to follow Francis’ support of marginalized communities.
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“I think he will go down as a pope who is always very concerned about the marginalized. And I think that’s something that … it’s an easy thing to forget,” he said. “And so, I think prioritizing the unborn, the refugees, like people who are marginalized by society, and who are not protected as well, specifically in our culture, I think that’s a really important, lasting impact he’s made.”
Fr. Jeff Belger, priest director at Newman, said Francis’ death on Easter Monday presents an important teaching for our lives.
“We’re at Easter Monday, so it’s supposed to be all joyful,” he said. “Christ has risen, and yet this. So, the reason we can celebrate Francis is because Jesus broke the bonds of sin and death. So, it is a loss, and it’ll be an adjustment. But what in a sense of perfect timing to have it right at Easter.”
In the wake of Francis’ death, Belger urges Catholics to understand the papacy is not an office intended to fill the shoes of those that came before; rather, each pope is designed to grow in continuity from the last, stemming back to Saint Pope Peter, who was one of Jesus’ 12 Apostles.
“We’re not trying to replace Francis. We’re trying to replace Peter, who, you know, Jesus chose to lead the church, and then so Jesus will and the Holy Spirit will guide the church into the next pope,” he said. “And that’s what we’re praying for, is that we, as humanists, listen attentively and pick the right guy.”