Tribute to the Holy Father Francis: A Watchman Between the Veils of the World

John 3:8

“The wind blows where it wills, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

Requiescat in pace. May your breath return to the One you followed to the very end, and may your silence—now one with the light—continue to whisper to the Church what the Spirit speaks to the awakened heart.

The Holy Father Francis

He was the son of a railway worker, who became a Jesuit, then Cardinal of Buenos Aires, and finally chosen as Bishop of Rome, "from the ends of the earth." Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who became Francis, was the first non-European pope in centuries, and the first to take the name in memory of the poverello of Assisi. He washed the feet of the forgotten, denounced spiritual worldliness, wept with migrants, stood firm before the powerful, built bridges between cultures, and reminded the world that mercy is not a slogan, but a wound wide open in the heart of Christ. His stooped figure, his weary gaze, his silences more eloquent than many words—all bore witness to that Church which goes forth: wounded but upright, maternal and prophetic.

He had known immigration, fear, and poverty. Not as a concept, but as flesh—sarx, in the Pauline sense: not merely as body, but as human condition in its vulnerability, its limitations, its cry. It was this raw, silent, non-ideological reality that shaped him. It made him profoundly human, fiercely compassionate, true—as Christ was true, who did not skim over our condition but embraced it to the end. Francis was not an abstract pope, a pope of systems and theories: he was an incarnate pope. And that is what disturbed many. When he spoke of misery, it was not from a pulpit, but from memory. When he wept for the dead of migration, it was because some had passed through his life and left a wound that had never closed. And yet, he smiled. Not a diplomatic smile, not a polished gesture, but a smile rooted in hope, in an indestructible faith.

He could have echoed Paul in the secrecy of his prayer:

“For my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9)

And the world did not understand. But weakness lived as offering is already a different kind of strength—the only one worth desiring: that of Christ.

He was reproached for not putting forward the title "Vicar of Christ." But what did Christ say? "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life" (Jn 14:6). Not "I speak," not "I conceptualize"—but "I am." Jesus never presented Himself as an abstraction, but as a Presence. Pope Francis, in the mystery of his vocation, lived this deeply—not as an idea, but as a lived tension, a witness, an incarnation. He bore the title not in pomp, but in flesh. It was not he who said, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9), and yet he walked humbly within that word, bearing it as an impossible cross—for the thoughts of God are not our thoughts (cf. Isa 55:8). And yet... the Word became flesh, and we have seen His glory. In him, something of that face was granted to us.

Like Job at the end of his trial, the members of the Church were shaken. For until then, we had heard of him only by hearsay, but now, through this pontificate, our eyes have seen something (cf. Job 42:5). Yes, the Holy Father was truly the Vicar of Christ—not in a pompous title or logic of dominion, but in all his humanity, his offered heart, his weakness pierced by light. And that, precisely, is what moved us.

He was a spiritual and political pope, gentle and firm, contemplative and committed, often attacked, rarely understood. He lived under constant criticism, sometimes even from those who should have supported him. Yet never did he swerve from his mission: to awaken a Church asleep in its certainties. Pope Francis stood as a watchman, a breaker of automatisms, a witness to the patience of God.

Is the Church fractured, as some say… or is it simply awakening? Everything depends on the neutrality with which we interpret the times. Through his life, his ministry, and his death, the Holy Father reminds us: the heart of Christianity is not ideology, but listening. Listening to the Spirit.

We must simply relearn how to listen. There are not only two extremes—progressive and traditionalist—and it is also our duty to discern what the Holy Spirit is saying through each voice. Where some seek heresy in their brother, others hear the call to humility. There is no Revelation without gradual unveiling, and no unveiling without silence to receive it.

What is most worldly is not being progressive or traditionalist. No, the most "of the world" attitude is to be so thoroughly shaped—even lobotomized—by the logics of our age, by the polarizations of left and right and all their derivatives, that even within the Church we become a mirror of the world… only with cassocks and prayers.

“Wisdom dwells,” said Aristotle, “in the just mean—between excesses." : And it was there, precisely, that Pope Francis stood—often misunderstood, sometimes mocked—in the narrow place. Neither of one camp nor the other, but of the One who prayed: “That they may all be one” (Jn 17:21). He carried tensions without fleeing them. He suffered without defending himself. He preached unity—not as a fusion of ideas, but as a passage through the fire of love.

May God enlighten His people. For it is by the love we have for one another that we shall be known as disciples (cf. Jn 13:35)… and we are still far from that place.

Thank you, Holy Father, for bringing this into the light. For having stood watch while we slept. For having cried while we whispered. For having kept your gaze fixed upon the aletheia—the unveiled truth—while we were still fascinated by appearances.

Matthew 24:42 “Keep watch, then, for you do not know on what day your Lord will come.”

The one who watches does not sleep in illusion.He awaits the naked light.

The one who watches walks toward aletheia—truth that comes only at the hour we cannot foresee.