Father Dave welcomes back journalist and papal biographer Austen Ivereigh to discuss the legacy of Pope Francis and what’s next for the global Church. Austen is the author of two biographies of Pope Francis, and he and the pope co-wrote a book called, “Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future.”
Austen reflects on the death of Pope Francis as someone who personally knew him. “It was obviously a shock when I got the news. I came straight to Rome [from the United Kingdom], and I almost didn’t have time to process it,” he begins. “A Vatican official friend took me to see his body in the Domus Sanctae Marthae before it was put on display in the Basilica. That’s when it really hit me — he’s there, but he’s not there. It’s him, but it’s not him. …I’ve been spending the whole week obviously talking about him, it has felt good to do that; I’m carrying on the mission of explaining him to people.”
LISTEN: On Retreat With Pope Francis and Papal Biographer Austen Ivereigh
He looks back on Pope Francis’ last days on Earth, especially his final visit to St. Peter’s Square in the popemobile on Easter. “He told his nurse Massimiliano Strappetti [some of] his last words on Earth: ‘Thank you for taking me back to the square.’ No script writer could write this stuff; the poignancy of it, the power of it,” Austen says. “Then [after his death] the people come to him, to give the love back.”
Austen considers why so many came to visit Pope Francis lying in state. “I think everybody, to some extent, felt connected to him. What is this bond? I think it’s the same bond that the crowd had with Jesus; he awoke in them the sense of their own dignity. He showed them that they were loved and they were captivated by that. By him, yes, but also by how he made them feel,” he says. “We need to know God’s nearness, and that’s why he was always going out to hug, to embrace, to make people feel held. That was really important.”
Father Dave and Austen discuss the diversity of cardinals that Pope Francis appointed, and how that will impact the upcoming papal conclave. Father Dave notes, “Pope Francis appointed cardinals from 25 countries that had never before in the history of the Church been represented in the College of Cardinals. Is that significant?”
Austen responds, “His reason for doing that was very straightforward. …the Cardinals are asking themselves this week the big question: What kind of pope do we need for this world and this Church? You can only really begin that discernment when you have first done a reality check, and when you’ve contemplated the reality. He wanted to make sure that that reality was present in the room.”
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“He was never afraid of diversity. I do think that’s one of the issues at this conclave, because I sense there are some cardinals that want to go back to a basically a Western European Church, where everybody else is sort of on the periphery,” Austen continues. “We’ve entered into a new era, and Francis was very aware of that. I think he was the first pope of a new, global, post-secular, and post-modern era in which we’re a multi-polar Church.”
“There are many different centers of Catholicism, and somehow we’ve got to forge communion out of that,” he adds. “It’s not easy, which is why we need synodality. We need the practice of coming together to listen deeply to each other.”
