Pope Francis: His Final Prayer

The Humbling Holy Father: Lessons from the Pope Francis Era

Pope Francis will be remembered for the moment he kissed a visibly dIsfigured man, Vinicio Riva, in November 2013. Riva, who died in 2024, had Von Recklinghausen’s disease, also known as neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), tumors on nerves and skin from head to toe, showing growths, swellings, and itchy sores. Pope Francis saw him and immediately embraced and kissed him. Riva recalled, “He embraced me without speaking … I quivered. I felt a great warmth.” Image by Joseph Serwach using Grok.

Pope Francis (1936–2025) humbled himself — and us— repeatedly. The Pope of the Peripheries pushed boundaries, seeking mercy.

“The oblivion of death is also its beginning,” the first New World Pope taught us. “A culture that forgets death begins to die within.”

The first Argentinian Pope constantly surprised everyone. His death was anticipated for weeks, but then he emerged for Easter Sunday prayers and a meeting with Vice President JD Vance.

Just two months ago, the Pope seemed to scold Vance, but on Easter Sunday, the 88-year-old Holy Father and the 40-year-old vice president were together. The Church is the biggest family. All was healed.

Then, when everyone least expected, that night he had a cerebral stroke, went into a coma, and then his heart collapsed, dying at 7:35 a.m. on Easter Monday. Instead of being buried at the Vatican, he asked to be buried at the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major, where he frequently prayed.

Jason Horowitz, The New York Times Rome Bureau Chief, called him “a pope of surprises.”

In 2,000 years, just two popes lived to be older than Pope Francis: Pope Celestine III died at 92 (living from 1106-1198), and Pope…