{"id":290886,"date":"2025-04-26T11:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T11:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/26\/the-route-to-santa-maria-maggiore-recalls-centuries-old-traditions\/"},"modified":"2025-04-26T11:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T11:02:10","slug":"the-route-to-santa-maria-maggiore-recalls-centuries-old-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/26\/the-route-to-santa-maria-maggiore-recalls-centuries-old-traditions\/","title":{"rendered":"The route to Santa Maria Maggiore recalls centuries-old traditions."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/div>


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The life and legacy of Pope Francis \u2014 a pontiff who defied easy definition and led the Roman Catholic Church through a dozen years of different phases and contradictions \u2014 are not easy to fit into a single homily.<\/p>\n

But that was the task for Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, on Saturday.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe was a pope among the people, with an open heart toward everyone,\u201d Cardinal Re said beside Francis\u2019 coffin from the steps of St. Peter\u2019s Square. \u201cHe was also a pope attentive to the signs of the times and what the Holy Spirit was awakening in the church.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the cardinals arrayed around him prepared to head into a conclave next month to choose Francis\u2019 successor, Cardinal Re, 91, avoided obvious political overtones. But by highlighting Francis\u2019 pastoral and inclusive approach, and his humble style, Cardinal Re\u2019s tribute sought to remind the tens of thousands of faithful at St. Peter\u2019s Square, the dozens of assembled heads of state and dignitaries, and \u2014 perhaps most important \u2014 the cardinals responsible for picking Francis\u2019s replacement what made him such an esteemed figure inside and outside the church.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guiding thread of his mission was also the conviction that the church is a home for all, a home with its doors always open,\u201d Cardinal Re said.<\/p>\n

He said that Francis had spread the faith with a sense of joy, a \u201cgreat spontaneity and an informal way of addressing everyone,\u201d and a spirit of \u201cwelcome and listening.\u201d But Francis also \u201ctruly shared the anxieties, sufferings and hopes of this time of globalization.\u201d<\/p>\n

With President Trump seated a few yards away, Cardinal Re recalled the late pope\u2019s trip to the border between Mexico and the United States<\/a>, one of his many \u201cgestures and exhortations in favor of refugees and displaced persons,\u201d when Francis spoke of the need to \u201cbuild bridges, not walls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cardinal Re said that Francis\u2019 pastoral style and \u201cresolute personality\u201d had immediately made a mark on the church, and that the pontiff had been \u201ceager to be close to everyone, with a marked attention to those in difficulty, giving himself without measure, especially to the marginalized, the least among us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cardinal spoke of Francis\u2019 rise through the hierarchy to become pope and said his decision to take the name Francis, after the medieval saint dedicated to caring for the poor, \u201cimmediately appeared to indicate the pastoral plan and style on which he wanted to base his pontificate.\u201d<\/p>\n

He described Francis as a simple pastor who until his last day followed in the footsteps of Jesus, who loved his flock \u201cto the point of giving his life for them,\u201d because he believed it was better to give than to receive.<\/p>\n

Cardinal Re walked through Francis\u2019 milestones in the church, his protection of the environment, his work healing wounds between religions, including a document on human fraternity that he signed with Muslim leaders in the United Arab Emirates, and his frequent calls to stop war and conflict. He recalled how Francis physically reached out to the world\u2019s peripheries, seeking to heal wounds and spread seeds of faith.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe outpouring of affection that we have witnessed in recent days following his passing from this Earth into eternity tells us how much the profound pontificate of Pope Francis touched minds and hearts,\u201d Cardinal Re said.<\/p>\n

He said the enduring image of Francis would be that of Easter Sunday, the day before his death when, despite being obviously ailing, he came to a balcony overlooking St. Peter\u2019s Square to deliver his blessing and then greeted the crowd.<\/p>\n

Recalling that Francis often ended talks with an invitation to pray for him, the cardinal concluded, \u201cDear Pope Francis, we now ask you to pray for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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The life and legacy of Pope Francis \u2014 a pontiff who defied easy definition and led the Roman Catholic Church through a dozen years of different phases and contradictions \u2014 are not easy to fit into a single homily. But that was the task for Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/26\/multimedia\/26pope-funeral-route-01\/26pope-funeral-carousel-cvjp-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[120076,18714,226261,28123,5029,164769,11138,89944,31263],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290886"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290888,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290886\/revisions\/290888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}