4/25/25 - Friday Forget-Me-Nots by Jim Silcott

Photo Caption: Luck Be a Lady Casino Night on May 1, 2025

Dear Our Lady of Peace Family,

The Catholic Church mourns the death of Pope Francis I. At the same time, we celebrate his life and all that he has done for our Church and our world.

With the naming of a new pope sometime in the next month, he will be the 8th one in my lifetime. While I have no memory of Pope Pius XII as he died in 1958 when I was only two years old, the rest of the pontiffs in my lifetime have all been memorable. Indeed, three of them have been named saints by the Catholic Church: John XIII, Paul VI and Jogn Paul II.

I was still very young when Pope John XIII died, and Pope Paul VI was named. John XXIII was responsible for Vatican II which changed so much for us as Catholics. I remember Mass in Latin with the priest facing the tabernacle for most of the liturgy. I started my altar boy preparation learning the Latin Mass (perhaps a foreshadowing of my love for that language). It was not long before English was introduced and my training shifted. By allowing priests all over the world to celebrate Mass in people’s native tongues, the beautiful words of the service and the miracle of transubstantiation were made accessible for everyone.

What I remember most about Paul VI was when he came to NYC, the first pontiff to come to the United States. I was living with my family on Long Island, New York at the time. He said Mass at Yankee Stadium. Although I was nowhere near that blessed event, my grandfather had taken me the summer before to a baseball game there. Watching the Mass on television I could almost see the bleacher seat where Pop and I sat.

Pope John Paul I only served as head of the church for about 30 days. My parents had the fortunate opportunity to travel to Rome and meet him during his brief time there in one of his few weekly audiences. To clarify, the audience was with hundreds and hundreds of other people, but my mom gave me a book that he had written where he had conversations in fictional correspondence with historical figures. I was impressed that one of my favorite authors, Mark Twain, was one of the people to whom he wrote.

I awoke one early morning and turned on the television. Cable TV was in its infancy and rather than 24-hour live news, there was a channel where you could look at news headlines. I read that the Pope had died, and my first thought was that this was really old news. I was shocked that our newly named pontiff had died.

John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope in almost 500 years. He had spent his life up to then behind the iron curtain of communism in Poland. Because I started working for Catholic schools in 1979, he was one of my first “bosses.” He is credited with helping to liberate Eastern Europe with his words and prayers. When he first became Pope, he was relatively young, and his energy was impressive. It was hard to see him in his later years continue to lead us as he struggled with illness.

Pope Benedict the XVI was well known for he became the head of the Catholic Church. As Cardinal Ratzinger, he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He was also notable for abdicating the papacy because of his own ill health.

I will leave it to others to comment on Pope Francis’ legacy. To me, his refusal to live in the Papal palace and his commitment to the poor, especially migrants, touched me deeply. I have read that his final instructions concerning his death was that his tombstone would only say Franciscus is a testament to the Christ-like simplicity of the man.

Bets are already on as to who will become our next pope. Let us pray for him. And let us pray for the repose of the soul of Francis.

Jim Silcott