Just about two weeks before he died, Francis announced that Archbishop-elect McKnight will be the next archbishop of Kansas City, Mo., and that Bishop Lewandowski will become the next bishop of Providence, R.I.
Pope Francis’ face was forever hidden from the world when his coffin was closed at 8 o’clock on Friday evening, April 25, just as the sun was setting over Rome.
Pope Francis trusted the imagination and regarded it as a gift from God. Instead of being suspicious and fearful of its power, he urged artists to follow its promptings.
I discovered that Catholicism could speak meaningfully to contemporary issues, that it could challenge power rather than embody it. I began to pay attention again.
So many mourners lined up to see Pope Francis lying in state in a simple wooden coffin inside St. Peter’s Basilica that the Vatican kept the doors open all night.
A church that dialogues is “much more interesting than a church where things fall from up high,” Jesuit Father Arturo Sosa, superior general of the Jesuits, said.