God loves us, God loves you all, and evil will not prevail! All of us are in God’s hands. So, let us move forward, without fear, together, hand in hand with God and with one another!— from the new Pope’s first address, 8th May, 2025.
I suppose, in a way, it is appropriate: he was ever the Pope of the dramatic gesture, with a sense of the theatrical about him, and was always encouraging us to put our feet where our faith is. Perhaps, in his dying on Easter Monday, we might see a similar thing.
Yet I remember this aspect of him taking a little getting used to at first, especially after the careful manner of Pope Benedict. Pope Francis had less time for words, even a certain impatience with them, and perhaps the same went for formalities. He always gave the impression that there was no time to lose, and so it is characteristic that he should have had his foot on the accelerator to the very end. This was a man who in embraced a disfigured man without hesitation; who actually knelt to kiss the feet of the warring leaders of South Sudan, who amid evening rainfall calmly blessed the whole world in those vertiginous first weeks of the pandemic. A critic might call it a ‘PR papacy’, and indeed any photo-op carries the risk of playing to the camera; yet these images, which were challenging and conscience-pricking, were also a kind of riposte to the age of the age of airbrushing and virtue-signalling.
The media, of course, also put their own spin on him, as is their wont; to them he was simply the Pope who wanted to make the Church more ‘progressive’ and ‘forward-looking’, and apparently a change from previous Popes (which is of course a jab at Pope Benedict, something they can never resist). But as ever the media reveal their selective hearing, choosing to ignore the moments when he expressed himself with startling directness, capable of criticising liberal and conservative excesses with equal enthusiasm, while also pointing out that the Christian faith transcends either. He was perfectly willing to fire from both barrels, and indeed I have found him more chastening and challenging than I did the supposedly stricter (but actually very gentle) Pope Benedict.
Yet of course he did strike a particular tone of mercy. His description of the Church as a field-hospital has stayed with me, as with so many: the priority of getting people, in whatever condition or state of life, out of the rain and the cold of the world, and into the warm and dry of the Church. He is right this is a world that urgently needs the Church (the world’s largest provider of healthcare, and its largest educational institution, and perhaps the largest humanitarian organisation overall, even before we get onto spiritual matters…). He was right we cannot necessarily afford to wait until everything is neat and tidy before putting out into the deep. Similarly, his promotion of a ‘culture of encounter’ has encouraged me to overcome my reserved nature and speak (and, I hope, listen!) to more people. Finally, his extension of mercy above all – the unique priority of the Christian faith – was also absolutely urgent. So, may the Lord soon welcome him to his reward, and grant him the eternal life in which he taught us to hope.
Now, as we await his successor, here again is his final homily:
Christ is risen, alleluia!
Dear brothers and sisters, Happy Easter!
Today at last, the singing of the ‘alleluia’ is heard once more in the Church, passing from mouth to mouth, from heart to heart, and this makes the people of God throughout the world shed tears of joy.
From the empty tomb in Jerusalem, we hear unexpected good news: Jesus, who was crucified, ‘is not here, he has risen’. Jesus is not in the tomb, he is alive!
Love has triumphed over hatred, light over darkness and truth over falsehood. Forgiveness has triumphed over revenge. Evil has not disappeared from history; it will remain until the end, but it no longer has the upper hand; it no longer has power over those who accept the grace of this day.
Sisters and brothers, especially those of you experiencing pain and sorrow, your silent cry has been heard and your tears have been counted; not one of them has been lost!
In the passion and death of Jesus, God has taken upon himself all the evil in this world and in his infinite mercy has defeated it. He has uprooted the diabolical pride that poisons the human heart and wreaks violence and corruption on every side. The Lamb of God is victorious! That is why, today, we can joyfully cry out: ‘Christ, my hope, has risen!’ .
The resurrection of Jesus is indeed the basis of our hope. For in the light of this event, hope is no longer an illusion. Thanks to Christ — crucified and risen from the dead — hope does not disappoint! Spes non confundit! That hope is not an evasion, but a challenge; it does not delude, but empowers us.
All those who put their hope in God place their feeble hands in his strong and mighty hand; they let themselves be raised up and set out on a journey. Together with the risen Jesus, they become pilgrims of hope, witnesses of the victory of love and of the disarmed power of Life.
Christ is risen! These words capture the whole meaning of our existence, for we were not made for death but for life. Easter is the celebration of life! God created us for life and wants the human family to rise again! In his eyes, every life is precious! The life of a child in the mother’s womb, as well as the lives of the elderly and the sick, who in more and more countries are looked upon as people to be discarded.
What a great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day in the many conflicts raging in different parts of our world! How much violence we see, often even within families, directed at women and children! How much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalised, and migrants!
On this day, I would like all of us to hope anew and to revive our trust in others, including those who are different than ourselves, or who come from distant lands, bringing unfamiliar customs, ways of life and ideas! For all of us are children of God!
I would like us to renew our hope that peace is possible! From the Holy Sepulchre, the Church of the Resurrection, where this year Easter is being celebrated by Catholics and Orthodox on the same day, may the light of peace radiate throughout the Holy Land and the entire world.
I express my closeness to the sufferings of Christians in Palestine and Israel, and to all the Israeli people and the Palestinian people. The growing climate of anti-Semitism throughout the world is worrisome. Yet at the same time, I think of the people of Gaza, and its Christian community in particular, where the terrible conflict continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation.
I appeal to the warring parties: call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace!
Let us pray for the Christian communities in Lebanon and in Syria, presently experiencing a delicate transition in its history. They aspire to stability and to participation in the life of their respective nations. I urge the whole Church to keep the Christians of the beloved Middle East in its thoughts and prayers.
I also think in particular of the people of Yemen, who are experiencing one of the world’s most serious and prolonged humanitarian crises because of war, and I invite all to find solutions through a constructive dialogue.
May the risen Christ grant Ukraine, devastated by war, his Easter gift of peace, and encourage all parties involved to pursue efforts aimed at achieving a just and lasting peace.
On this festive day, let us remember the South Caucasus and pray that a final peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan will soon be signed and implemented, and lead to long-awaited reconciliation in the region.
May the light of Easter inspire efforts to promote harmony in the western Balkans and sustain political leaders in their efforts to allay tensions and crises, and, together with their partner countries in the region, to reject dangerous and destabilising actions.
May the risen Christ, our hope, grant peace and consolation to the African peoples who are victims of violence and conflict, especially in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Sudan and South Sudan. May he sustain those suffering from the tensions in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region, as well as those Christians who in many places are not able freely to profess their faith.
There can be no peace without freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of expression and respect for the views of others.
Nor is peace possible without true disarmament! The requirement that every people provide for its own defence must not turn into a race to rearmament.
The light of Easter impels us to break down the barriers that create division and are fraught with grave political and economic consequences. It impels us to care for one another, to increase our mutual solidarity, and to work for the integral development of each human person.
During this time, let us not fail to assist the people of Myanmar, plagued by long years of armed conflict, who, with courage and patience, are dealing with the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Sagaing, which caused the death of thousands and great suffering for the many survivors, including orphans and the elderly. We pray for the victims and their loved ones, and we heartily thank all the generous volunteers carrying out the relief operations.
The announcement of a ceasefire by various actors in the country is a sign of hope for the whole of Myanmar.
I appeal to all those in positions of political responsibility in our world not to yield to the logic of fear which only leads to isolation from others, but rather to use the resources available to help the needy, to fight hunger and to encourage initiatives that promote development. These are the ‘weapons’ of peace: weapons that build the future, instead of sowing seeds of death!
May the principle of humanity never fail to be the hallmark of our daily actions. In the face of the cruelty of conflicts that involve defenceless civilians and attack schools, hospitals and humanitarian workers, we cannot allow ourselves to forget that it is not targets that are struck, but persons, each possessed of a soul and human dignity.
In this Jubilee year, may Easter also be a fitting occasion for the liberation of prisoners of war and political prisoners!
Dear brothers and sisters,
In the Lord’s Paschal Mystery, death and life contended in a stupendous struggle, but the Lord now lives forever. He fills us with the certainty that we too are called to share in the life that knows no end, when the clash of arms and the rumble of death will be heard no more. Let us entrust ourselves to him, for he alone can make all things new!
Happy Easter to everyone!
An ‘Easter banger’ (to coin a phrase!) from OLEM, Our Lady of the English Martyrs in Cambridge, Easter Vigil, 24th April, 2025: Peter Latona’s setting of the antiphon for the Rite of Sprinkling: ‘I saw water flowing from the right side of the Temple’ (‘Vidi aquam’).
Long, long ago,Oh! so long ago,Christ was born in BethlehemTo heal the world’s woe.
These have now been nearly two rather difficult years. The hardship of the pandemic continues, menacing us not only in the obvious ways, with sickness and the threat of sickness, but also by disorientation and incertitude. So much about it seems so hard to read, so impossible to predict; even with reliable statistics, it is often a struggle to work out what such figures actually mean for our lives. Hard information is not enough by itself to arbitrate between imperatives; for that, something different is needed: the gift of wisdom.
Many of the strands of hope I thought I perceived at the onset of the pandemic — greater local feeling, a sense of unity, a new awareness of the sanctity of life — seemed to fade with the receding of the first wave of the virus. The blessed quietness of the roads lasted only a few weeks here in mid-suburban south London before the traffic came surging back, if anything heavier and more aggressive than before (though I have been surprised this past month by a distinct lessening in comparison to December last year. The mood on the roads often seems a useful barometer for the public mood in general). Even during the first wave, certain things marred the solidarity: I did not like the police helicopters on the lookout for gatherings on the nearby Common — a huge expenditure of resources supposedly too scarce to provide basic foot patrols in ordinary times — nor the Government’s almost immediate resort to the law to enforce the ‘lockdowns’, even though the great majority of people clearly understood the seriousness of the diesease and were already taking heed of the unfolding crisis. As for a pro-life revival, its seeds are evidently yet to spring; only this past autumn the House of Lords was debating yet another motion for assisted suicide. There is much to be grateful for in the development of the vaccines, and some aspects of the good things I hoped for have come about — but overall it has been an uncertain, unsettling time.
Then there is the new gear into which the dictatorship of relativism has shifted, the breathtaking speed with which that nameless thing, the ideological movement that is all around us, has conquered so completely the mainstream of our culture. Identity politics, imported wholesale from the United States, is one way to describe it, or radical-secularist-progressivist-post-modernism; I do not really think we yet have an adequate word for it. But it is frightening and dangerous. In Britain for the first time in something like a century it is once again fashionable and respectable to judge people not by their character but by their arbitrary and immutable characteristics. Meanwhile, in the highest and most venerable institutions, simplistic or ideological readings of history go unchallenged, extreme conclusions are drawn, and guilty verdicts are passed on our forbears. All high principles, all traditional distinctions are undermined and torn down.
If, as the claim runs, there is no truth, merely power, no wonder the dictatorship of relativism wants that power for itself, however stridently it proclaims its good intentions. Such is the strength of this thing that even the pandemic itself has been relativised before it, and never more clearly than at that dizzying moment when the mass protests and disorder of summer 2020 actually found favour with respectable public opinion. That episode, to me, was more alarming even than the first wave of the pandemic: to see the three months’ solidarity evaporate not for weddings, not for funerals, not even for the national memorial of V. E. Day, but for contentious street protests inspired by events in a different country and advocating a hostile and revolutionary ideology; and then to witness the behaviour of supposedly serious and grown-up public bodies — even the most cherished and trusted public institutions in the land — suddenly issuing startlingly, embarrassingly politicised ‘statements’ in support of these protests. One feels the ground moving under one’s feet in noticing the kinds of remarks, however outrageous, that because they are politically approved one can get away with saying in public, by comparison to those that one cannot say: the plain common sense, the eternal verities even. A radical and narrow-minded agenda is taking advantage of a general crisis of leadership to flourish in our institutions, and it is an agenda that is growing ever more overtly hostile to common decency, to fair-mindedness, to traditional Britain and ultimately to the Christian faith and imagination.
The whole movement is a caustic solvent, dissolving memories, restraints and all kinds of proper boundaries, notably those between the political and the personal, and between the political and the religious. In many circles it is increasingly difficult to demur, to reserve judgement on a matter, to remain apolitical, let alone to make one’s own mind up about a particular issue (no sooner does a newsworthy event occur than one particular interpretation of it emerges and is pressed home). Many people feel considerable misgivings about it all, even as they experience the not inconsiderable pressure to give in and go along with it.
The cultural upheaval has, on the other hand, brought certain grounds for hope, such as the possibility of interesting and fruitful alliances between, say, us inveterate churchgoers, who are well used to life on Progressivism’s list of enemies, and those newer to troublemaker status, such as those of a ‘secular liberal’ persuasion who recognise and reject the authoritarian streak in identity politics. Only a few years ago we might have considered each other opponents; now, though, there is an opportunity to find some common cause, an unexpected way to put into practice Pope Francis’s ‘culture of encounter’, and a chance to remind the world — and perhaps ourselves as well — that the Church is always keen to take part in exciting conversations, wherever they are happening and whomever between, and willing to make its contribution to the public forum. The New Evangelisation has some interesting new dialogues to enter, and I think some surprises await us.
All the same, ordinary life is undoubtedly growing more difficult for those of us who wish simply to live a quiet life in accordance with the wisdom of our forbears; increasingly, it will take actual grit. The lines that began this post were composed by the writer and ornithologist John Buxton on Christmas Eve in 1941 while a prisoner-of-war at Laufen camp in Salzburg. Our situation is obviously very different from his, but I think we can still profit from the wisdom of his approach. Half the battle, in these next few years, will be to keep our heads: we, like Buxton, in that ingenuous style reminiscent of a medieval carol, might find ourselves reciting simple truths in defiance of the world’s madnesses:
His mother in the stableWatched him where he lay,And knew, for all his frailty,He was the world’s stay.
Now of course this is Christmastide, when it is proper to feast and make merry, and I should not really be striking such a minor key here. (In truth I had originally intended this post for the end of Advent; New Year’s Eve seemed the next most thoughtful moment!) This is a precious time of year, one of the few seasons when we can return properly into the real world of our homes and families, and precious not only because the celebrations of Christmas will give us the strength to face the year to come, but because they are good and glorious at the present moment, for their own sake. And in any case, they do not only give us strength for the future; ultimately they are the future; they are a foretaste of the chord into which all things, the world’s woe and all, shall resolve.
For he should be the Saviour,Making wars to cease,Who gives joy to all men,And brings them peace.
Wishing all readers good health and much happiness in the New Year.
Herbert Howells’ haunting setting of John Buxton’s carol ‘Long, long ago’. Sung by I Fagiolini, 24th December 2020.
