No jokes from me about the death of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, better known under his pseudonym Pope Francis. My thoughts, I had better say, are with his family which consists of his sister María Elena. For all that, I am more than slightly puzzled by the reporting of his passing.
Sky News leads with the headline: ‘Pope Francis Dies Latest’. His condition – being dead – clearly hasn’t changed, nor is it likely, even though he managed to shuffle off his mortal coil on the Easter weekend, a time when some people believe a dead person came back to life.
You may have noted that I do not do God so all the paraphernalia surrounding the Pope’s passing leaves me a little baffled. The first thing I saw today was that Jorge was lying, dead, in his coffin, or casket as it appears to be known in modern parlance. Then, the date of his funeral was announced before we learned that various cardinals are on their way to Rome for a jolly to elect a new Pope. What I find staggering is the efficiency of the Vatican news machine. Given that barely 8% of the population of England and Wales call themselves catholics is testament to that, with a small minority of around 91% of us claiming to belong to one of the competing religions or no religion at all.
I know somewhere between little and nothing about Jorge, as I call him. I know he used to be a nightclub bouncer before becoming a full-time religious person (I am a little hazy when it comes to detail) and finally when he was at an age where most of us are expected to be in an old folks’ home drinking tea, eating biscuits and not knowing what day it was, he took on the top job, God’s main vicar on Earth.
Frankly, I have little interest in the everyday workings of any religions, never mind catholicism. I would imagine Jorge’s main job involved praying and waving at people, rather like a member of our royal family, covering up the sexual abuse of priests, denying women freedom of their own reproductive systems and making life as hard as possible for the LGBT community. Some accounts suggest that Jorge wasn’t as illiberal as many of his predecessors so I guess I can credit him with that. I can’t help thinking, though, that the good things he did, whatever they were, could just as easily have been carried out by someone with no faith at all.
Meanwhile, the funeral next Saturday looks like it will be a star-studded affair with leaders descending on Rome from all over the globe.Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be taking a welcome break from defending his country from a fascist invader, while Donald Trump will be taking an unwelcome break from tacitly supporting the fascist invader. We in the UK will be represented by Prince William, who will one day be head of the Church of England, and he will be be joined, I would imagine, by famous catholics like Mel Gibson, Mickey Rourke and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sadly for me, it’s hairwash day so I will have to content myself with highlights of the funeral on a special edition of Match of the Day.
In all seriousness (what?), with half the world starving and the other half seemingly at war, the death of an elderly theist is of zero relevance to my life. I of course respect the right of the devout to mourn Jorge’s life in any way they so wish, as long as it has no impact on me.
I end with potentially disappointing news for the old boy. As part of the introduction of a new book by Cardinal Angelo Scola (nor me), Jorge asserts: “Death is not the end but the start of something,” by which he means eternal life. All the evidence suggests that death is indeed the start of something, that something being death. I know that the idea that under God you need never die can be comforting, but that’s all.
RIP Jorge. I don’t think your legacy adds up to much at all, but that’s only my opinion. I hope his followers and fans get the closure they need at the weekend and that for the rest of us real life can resume. In my case, real life never went away.
