When St. John Paul II died, I built an elaborate shrine for him by the entrance of the Jesuit house of studies in the Bronx, where I was living. He was the only pope I had ever known. As a child, I tried to imitate the way he spoke—with that beautiful, booming, reassuring voice: “Be not afraid!” I had a recording of him singing the Pater Noster, and I played it over and over. I used to sing it to my baby sister while rocking her to sleep on the hammock.
John Paul II canonized the martyrs of Vietnam in 1988, and for the first time in the church’s history, a pope addressed the faithful in Vietnamese. He also named Servant of God Francis Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận a cardinal, bringing his story of hope and fidelity to the world after 13 years in prison, nine of them in solitary confinement when Saigon fell in 1975, 50 years ago. It was because of John Paul II that the West began to hear of the bishop who celebrated Mass in his cell with three drops of wine and one drop of water in the palm of his hand.
I believe my love for languages began with John Paul II, who spoke at least eight. I wanted to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in as many languages as I could. In his 26 years as pope, he visited 129 countries. When he died, approximately four million people came to Rome to mourn him. As many were saying at the time: “He came to us, so now we are going to him.” I also mourned him deeply when he passed.
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In middle school, while everyone else at home was asleep, I would sit alone in the dark with a flashlight, flipping through a copy of the New Testament, searching for miracles—signs and wonders. I kept coming back to this passage:
These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents [with their hands], and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. (Mk 16:17-18)
I wanted these powers. How much easier it would be to prove that Jesus was God among us! How much easier it would be to prove there is something more beyond this life—or at least, that’s what I told myself. In truth, I was looking for certainty, for some sense of control. I tried to find it in Scripture, in the lives of the saints, in stories of demonic possession and exorcisms, in accounts of Eucharistic miracles. I recorded Marian apparition documentaries on VHS long before YouTube existed. I needed something stable to ground reality—to ground the Catholic Christian faith I professed—because life felt full of anxiety and uncertainty.
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When Joseph Ratzinger became pope, I was in the middle of Spanish class. All of a sudden, one of my classmates shouted, “We have a pope!”—and the professor immediately dismissed the class. I loved Ratzinger at first because he was the tough doctrinal watchdog. He insisted that without truth, tolerance is cheapened and ultimately becomes meaningless. Doctrinal clarity gave me a sense of security. His writings were prayerful, thought-provoking and—above all—clear. I used to say I had to stop after every sentence just to let the depth of his words sink in. He was one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century—whose influence continued well into the 21st.
While his doctrinal precision drew me in, I later came to admire him just as much for his humility and pastoral sensitivity. As prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he began reforming the church’s approach to sexual abuse by members of the clergy. As pope, he was the first to meet personally with victims and ask for forgiveness. I entered religious life just as the scandals were breaking. And through Benedict, I learned to set aside any lingering triumphalism and face the brokenness within the church—not with defensiveness and apologetics, but with sorrow and contrition.
Benedict’s 2007 Letter to the Catholic Church in China called for unity among Catholics. He never used divisive terms like “underground church” or “official church.” The German Shepherd did not draw strict lines between who belonged and who did not. For him, there was one visible Catholic Church. He acknowledged that some bishops had been ordained illegitimately under pressure, but noted that many had since been reconciled with Rome. He assured the faithful that they could receive the sacraments from bishops and priests who were in full communion with the pope and recognized by the government. At the same time, he honored the suffering of those who remained faithful to the church and the successor of Peter during times of persecution.
I was studying in Beijing when his letter was published, and I was personally witness to the sense of vindication so many faithful Catholics felt after years of being demonized and sensationalized—often by Westerners who, not unlike the government, pitted Chinese Catholics against one another.
When Benedict announced his resignation, I didn’t know what to think or how to feel. I was very sad. Where is that secure grounding in reality now? But then I heard him say these words in his final address to the College of Cardinals: “Among you, in the College of Cardinals, there is also the future pope to whom today I promise my unconditional reverence and obedience.”
And I felt a surprising sense of calm. His final act as pope was to preemptively and humbly submit to his successor—so that, hopefully, no one could question the legitimacy of the next pope. Benedict believed that Christ had not abandoned his church—and never would.
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Despite my childhood ambitions, no one I prayed over in the name of Jesus was ever healed—at least not in the way I had hoped. Mary never appeared to me, and I never received the stigmatas I had been praying for. But I didn’t lose faith—at least not entirely—in part because there was another “backup” Scripture passage I turned to when I needed a firm foundation. It wasn’t about a fleeting sign like the dancing sun at Fatima, a weeping icon or an unexplainable medical recovery. It was something more concrete, explicitly visible to all, and, most importantly, enduring. Jesus said to Peter, “And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it” (Mt 16:18).
In my junior year of high school, our religion teacher asked each of us to choose a favorite Bible verse to carry with us through the year. He’d call on us from time to time to share it. For me, it was this promise to Peter and the church. Learning how the church had endured through the centuries—despite constant persecution up to the present day—became, for me, a sure sign that Jesus had kept his word. Despite the many corrupt popes in history, this statement from the Second Vatican Council still rings true: “The Roman Pontiff, as the successor of Peter, is the perpetual and visible principle and foundation of unity of both the bishops and of the faithful” (“Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,” No. 23). Not just perpetual, and not only spiritual, but also visible. That in itself is a kind of miracle. And no one gathers Christians—Catholics and non-Catholics alike—throughout the world, however imperfectly, in the way the pope does. The world needs the pope.
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The year I was approved for ordination as a deacon was also the year Pope Francis was elected. A Jesuit pope in my lifetime! And yet, I found myself in something of a crisis, face to face with my own weaknesses. I was studying Latin in Rome the summer of that year, and it happened that Francis would be offering Mass at the Church of the Gesù—just next door to where I was staying—for the first time as pope on the feast day of St. Ignatius Loyola. I was asked to serve at the Mass. It was an unforgettable day. I credit the novena to St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower.
After the liturgy, Pope Francis went around to each of the servers in the sacristy to greet us. I was standing between two other Jesuits when he reached our group. A million things ran through my mind. Should I thank him in Spanish or Italian? Should I say something profound? In the end, I didn’t say anything. While he chatted with my two brothers, I simply held his hand the whole time. And just before he turned to greet the next group, I gave him a big hug. He laughed and patted me on the back.
Afterward, I felt a quiet, humble confidence rise in me—the grace I needed to move forward toward ordination. I remember praying: “God, I’m not ready, but I know you are.”
From the very beginning, Pope Francis made sinners feel loved. When asked in one of his first interviews, “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” he replied: “I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.”
He spontaneously visited and reached out to those abandoned by society, embodying the church’s mission to be close to the marginalized. In his own humility, Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged this about Francis in a book-length interview in which he said: “I see that [Francis] is a thoughtful person, who grapples intellectually with the questions of our time. But at the same time he is simply someone who is very close to people, who stands with them, who is always among them.... Perhaps I was not truly among the people enough.”
Francis carried us through the Covid-19 pandemic. The image of him standing alone in an empty, rain-soaked St. Peter’s Square, offering a blessing to the world, will remain etched in the memory of the church. In a time of global fear and isolation, he made the mercy of God visible. He also opened the way for the church to speak and think more creatively and compassionately about complex doctrinal matters—not to abandon truth, but to approach it pastorally, with the wounded and the searching always in view.
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I mourned and celebrated all three popes—John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis. I read a post on social media that struck me. It read: “John Paul II reminded us what we believe. Benedict XVI taught us why we believe. Francis showed us how we believe.” I have prayed for the repose of their souls, and I hope that one day I’ll be able to publicly invoke the intercession of Benedict and Francis, alongside St. John Paul II. And now I pray for the future pope. I ask God for the grace to love the new pontiff and for the courage to pray with Blessed Carlo Acutis, who, while gravely ill, once said, “I offer to the Lord the sufferings that I will have to undergo for the pope and for the church.” The pope needs us too.
I never received the miraculous healing powers I once begged for when I was younger. But I received something greater: a church that endures. A church with Peter as Christ’s appointed, visible shepherd—not fleeting, not hidden, but steady, public, and yes, a fellow sinner. And that, I now know, is miraculous enough for me.
