The Tribune

We should not mythologise the last days of Pope Francis. Prior to his final appearance on Easter Sunday, on the loggia of St Peter’s Basilica around noon Rome time, the 88-yeat-old pontiff had spent 38 days in hospital with double pneumonia.

Those who have experienced pneumonia, various respiratory illnesses, or other acute medical problems know well the physical pain and suffering, and the emotional difficulties he endured. He experienced anxiety, gasping for air, nausea, multiple medical interventions, including needles and drips.

Francis nearly died in hospital. So serious was his condition, he was sent home for another two months of rest. It was plain to see the toll his illness took on his body. In his last public appearances, his gestures and movements were restrained. It was clear that he had little upper body mobility.

Pope Francis likely knew that he was dying. In his last day and a half, one of the most powerful men in the world, was physically helpless, absolutely vulnerable, and only able to live because of the care and attention of others, including Massimiliano Strappetti, his healthcare assistant since 2022.

Mr Strappetti reportedly helped to save the Pope’s life just a few years ago after suggesting colon surgery.

According to Vatican News, “Mr Strappetti stayed by the Pope’s side during all 38 days of his hospitalisation at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, and keeping watch round-the-clock during his recovery at the Casa Santa Marta. He was with the Pope on Easter Sunday, during the Urbi et Orbi blessing.

“The day before, they had gone together to St Peter’s Basilica to review the ‘route’ he would take the following day when he was to appear on the Central Loggia of St Peter’s Basilica.

“The late Pope wanted to offer one last, meaningful surprise to the 50,000 faithful with a ride in the popemobile on Sunday after the blessing on the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica façade.

“However, Pope Francis did hesitate a bit and asked the opinion of Mr Strappetti, asking him, ‘Do you think I can manage it?’

“Once in St Peter’s Square, he embraced the crowd, especially the children, since this was his first ride after being discharged from Gemelli hospital, as well as the last outing among the faithful of his life.

“Tired but content, the Pope afterwards thanked” Strappetti, offering, “Thank you for bringing me back to the Square.”

In the midst of his physical suffering and the last approximately 24 hours of his life, Pope Francis again exhibited two profound virtues demonstrated throughout his life and his pontificate: personal gratitude and service or generosity of spirit. He died as he lived.

Gratitude and generosity, companion virtues this Jesuit knew and lived from his earliest days as a priest. As Francis demonstrated, gratitude is never abstract. Whether gratitude for someone or something, it is always particular, incarnate, specific.

Francis said “thank you”, among his final words on Earth, to Strappetti, “the person who watched over him tirelessly throughout his illness, and who reportedly encouraged him to take one last ride in the popemobile on Sunday after the Urbi et Orbi.”

Mr Strappetti was the nursing coordinator of the Vatican Health Department before becoming the Pope’s personal nurse. Before his time at the Vatican, he served for eight years at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital in the intensive care unit.

Following his colon operation in 2021 and subsequent 11-day hospitalisation, Francis praised Strappetti in an interview with Spanish Radio station COPE. The pope called his nurse, “a man with a lot of experience” who “saved my life”.

The Pope enthused: “Now I can eat everything, which was not possible before with the diverticula. I can eat everything. I still have the postoperative medications, because the brain has to register that it has 33 centimeters [12 inches] less intestine,” the pope joked.

Those who have experienced the duty of care, expertise, and nourishment of devoted nurses, can attest to how these health care professionals save many lives and revive many spirits.

One can only imagine the love and friendship that the octogenarian pope now found in a much younger companion of Jesus, cum friend, himself a husband and father, who cared for the older man in the last decade and days of his life.

They developed a fraternal bond. New friendship are always a great joy and gift the older we become.

Genuine gratitude always issues forth in service. Indeed service is a form of gratitude, which releases us from the prisons and paralysis of self-absorption, navel-gazing, and self-pity.

In friendship and care, Strappetti supported Francis’s instinct for service by encouraging him to see the faithful gathered in St Peter’s Square seeking blessings and hope.

Though his movements were labored, Francis stopped to personally bless a number of children, including one who appeared to be enduring a health challenge. Service and generosity, like gratitude, is always specific, personal, incarnate.

For those of us who have many more 24-hour periods or even 24 months or more to live, whatever the condition of our health, what inspiration might we take from Pope Francis that is personal, specific, incarnate?

To whom might we share our friendship, our resources, our time, our love, our many kindnesses? To whom might we extend greater gratitude and service?

Moreover, our social concern must not just be to the poor, the homeless, the imprisoned, the hungry. It must be to those in our midst and moral gaze that we see and to whom we are obligated.

The ministry of Jesus as evidenced in the Gospels was to specific people, sinners, and those seeking the balm of mercy. The Good Samaritan responded to an injured man on the side of the road with specific wounds. Mercy too, is never abstract!

After Hurricane Dorian, Pope Francis offered condolences and blessings to The Bahamas. After personally hearing of the destruction of Sts Mary and Andrew Church in Treasure Cay by the super storm, Pope Francis provided financial assistance to rebuild the church. Generosity is always incarnate.

This week the BBC reported: “‘As-salaam Alaikum’ or ‘peace be upon you,’ Pope Francis ventured in Arabic while talking to parishioners in Gaza earlier this year.

“A short video released by the Vatican upon his death showed his intimate relationship with the Palestinian territory’s tiny Christian community, many of whom he came to know by name.

“During 18 months of war, he took to calling them nightly to check on their well-being.

‘What did you eat today?’ the Pope asks the local priests in the video, having switched to Italian. ‘The rest of the chicken from yesterday,’ replies Father Gabriel Romanelli.”

A decade ago, in 2015, during his Christmas Eve homily, Pope Francis reminded us of our mission as Christians, from which society is constantly distracted by the vulgarity and obscenity of crass and extreme materialism and “tingsiness”.

He implored: “In a society so often intoxicated by consumerism and hedonism, wealth and extravagance, appearances and narcissism, this Child calls us to act soberly, in other words, in a way that is simple, balanced, consistent, capable of seeing and doing what is essential.

“In a world which all too often is merciless to the sinner and lenient to the sin, we need to cultivate a strong sense of justice, to discern and to do God’s will. Amid a culture of indifference which not infrequently turns ruthless, our style of life should instead be devout, filled with empathy, compassion and mercy, drawn daily from the wellspring of prayer.”

In gratitude, scores in The Bahamas and globally are grateful for the ministry and life of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Argentinian man and priest, who was a friend to many, and as Pope Francis, a pastor to more than one billion

In gratitude for his example, may we be inspired to serve each other and the world with the courage, tenacity, mercy, joy, and humility he bequeathed us.