By Colum McCann
He will be a man about whom many stories will be told, not just now, but beyond all our own lives. It is the mark of a good human being that the stories about them will be varied. But it is a considerable mark that the stories he, or she, invokes will always be about others.
Pope Francis often said that as human beings we long for a new world.
I have several stories from the past couple of years when I have been blessed enough to meet with Pope Francis, but one in particular stands out, when, late last summer, he invited a small delegation to the Vatican to discuss issues of storytelling and peace in the Middle East.
Our delegation of five met near the papal apartments in the Cortille de Belvedere in the Vatican. We walked over the cobblestones damp from an early rain. We were greeted in the entryway and guided towards the elevators. It was a pristine building, well kept, high-ceilinged. As we turned a corner, we were surprised to see a large artwork on the wall. Two meters high, it was in the shape of a crucifix. It took a moment to realise that the giant cross was made of transparent resin and that the “body” of the cross was not a body at all, but an orange life jacket.
The artwork hung in the entryway to the Pope’s personal quarters, a startling symbol of the world’s refugees. A life jacket, most likely belonging to an African refugee rescued, or maybe even drowned, at sea, in the place of, or in tandem with, Christ.
We knew then that we were there to meet a person who held the stories of others.
Among our delegation were a Palestinian Christian, a Palestinian Muslim and an Israeli Jew. We remained in the waiting room a considerable time while other parties came and went from behind the door. Time held itself. Towards late morning, we were the last delegation. Pope Frances stood from his chair to shake hands. He was “deeply moved” to meet them, he said. They were an important part of the peace movement, not just in the Middle East, but around the globe.
Then he sat to listen. What was most extraordinary about him was how the words seemed to enter him. Viscerally. Tranquilly. His was a gentle presence, but candescent too. He seemed to be accepting the words as gifts. A pang of pain went across the hood of his eyes as his visitors talked of occupation, genocide, apartheid. The dark abysses of the human condition that he himself had often spoke about. He wanted to hear them in order to know what he could properly say to the rest of the world. It struck me that I had never seen words being accepted in the same way. The brutal realities. The common thread of pain. The anguish of the unsaid. The ignorance. The disinformation.
He wanted to hear all this in order to know what he might say, at another time, to other people around the world. When he finally did speak, he did so quietly, with care, compassion and startling humility. For common phrases – “thank you for coming,” “I am very moved by your stories” – he used English, but for that which he truly wanted to say he spoke to a Spanish interpreter. “You remind us that we still have light, even in the darkest moments.” “The peacemakers must embrace one another first.” “You have the ability to bring change into history.”
There was humour too. When it was suggested that he might make a good candidate for the President of the United States he quietly smiled and said: “I am not quite sure that it would be a benediction.”
To be in such a presence was a great gift, not just for the quality of the moment itself, but for what it suggested for what might come afterwards — the struggle for any sort of peaceful engagement in a shattered world. I was reminded of a line from Arabic poetry: “Is there any hope that this desolation might bring us solace?”
Downstairs, we passed the artwork again. It had become more crucifix than sculpture. The lifejacket was, of course, representative of whoever had once worn it, but it also represented the lives of the families that the Palestinian and Israeli delegation had seen lost, or in the current realm of terror and global indifference.
In the corner of the vaulted ceiling above where the crucifix hung, there was a small crack in the plasterwork. The paint was swollen and bubbling. This, in itself, was incredible in such a building: one did not expect there to be a blemish. Not only that, but the crack in the wall had allowed water to seep in.
It appeared to us, as we left the building, that the outside was seeking the inside, and that the rainwater was looking for the lifejacket. It was like a line from the Leonard Cohen song, Anthem: “There’s a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets through.”
It turned out that the crucifix was controversial to some who were critical of Pope Francis. Some rightwing critics said that he was “deifying the poor and the marginalised.” But that was not something Pope Francis would have responded to. He had blessed the crucifix in 2019. He had embraced the wider meaning. He knew.
In an earlier meeting, in 2023, I had heard him say to an assembled group of 200 artists: “Dear friends, I am happy that we have been able to meet. Before taking leave of you, I have one more thing to say to you, something close to my heart. I would like to ask you not to forget the poor, those especially close to the heart of Christ, those affected by all of today’s many forms of poverty.”
It is today a time of deep mourning. We look for solace. It will come. The grace and the solidarity will always be remembered.
The man might have left the stories behind, but the stories will not leave the man. – Vatican News
