Pope Francis Had the Heart of a Father
From guest writer Tyler Curtis
This April, Pope Francis, shepherd of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics, passed on to his eternal reward.
His Holiness was many things to many people: born in Argentina to a pair of middle-class Italian immigrants, he grew up to become a Jesuit priest. In 2013, he became the first South American to ascend to the throne of St. Peter. More than anything else, though, Pope Francis was a father.
Not a biological father, of course—Catholic priests take vows of celibacy. But Francis was a spiritual father. That’s what the word “pope” means, taken from the Greek “pappas,” meaning “father.”
He wasn’t always a perfect father. He had his fair share of gaffes, hurt some feelings, and sowed a bit of doctrinal confusion by calling the death penalty “inadmissible” and surmising that the Church may be able to offer Holy Communion to divorced and remarried persons.
I will leave it to more theologically gifted writers to parse through these controversies. Still, one thing seems clear to me: everything that Francis said and did flowed from his fundamental conception of God as Father and from his role as father of the universal Church.
The best example of this also happens to be my favorite moment from Francis’s pontificate.
It happened in 2018 when the Holy Father held a Q&A session with a group of children in Rome. A little boy stepped up to the microphone. Quivering, the boy was too nervous to speak in front of the crowd. Rather than turning the child away and moving on to someone else, Francis asked him to come on stage and whisper the question in his ear. Francis knew what this child needed and treated him as his own.
As it turns out, the boy’s father had recently passed away and though he was not a believer, he was a good man and he cared enough to have his children baptized.
The boy wanted to know… is my dad in Heaven?
“What is God’s heart like with a dad like that?” Francis asked the boy rhetorically. “A father’s heart… God has a dad’s heart… And with a dad who was not a believer, but who baptized his children… do you think God would be able to leave him far from himself?”
Many criticized the Pope for his response. Surely this was a gaffe worse than all the others. It was manifest heresy! He should have told the boy that his dad was rotting in Hell.
But while Francis certainly implied that the boy's dad could have been saved, he didn't explicitly say that. The dad’s ultimate destination depended on the disposition of his heart, which only God could know. Perhaps he had a secret deathbed conversion. Or perhaps God’s mercy is a bit wider than some want to believe.
What touched me most about this scene wasn’t necessarily what the Pope said, although his words were beautiful. Rather, it was the sensitive and paternal way that he responded. The video never fails to bring tears to my eyes. When I first watched it, I was reminded of Christ’s command in Matthew 19:14, “Let the children come to me and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.”
Francis empathized with the boy, shared in his grief, and reminded him that God isn’t some cold, distant force somewhere on Mount Olympus or out beyond the stars. God is fundamentally our Father who loves us and intensely desires to welcome his prodigal children back home.
He wants to be close to us.
For all the controversies of Francis’ reign, this is the moment I will never forget; the day Francis asked a child to come to him and showed him what God’s paternal mercy really means.
Tyler Curtis writes about economic policy, religion, and culture. His work has been featured in many outlets, including National Review, the Washington Examiner, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.